Northanger Abbey

Last night, I watched Northanger Abbey. I was really looking forward to seeing this because I have just finished reading the book and learned to like it very much. In the book, Catherine is a young girl obsessed with Gothic novels. She loves them. They are pretty much all she thinks about. Jane Austen wrote the book in a sarcastic, humorous kind of way to make fun of girls who let themselves get so caught up in silly novels. Anyway, Catherine is invited by her neighbors to travel to Bath with them and she, of course, can't wait to set out on this adventure. While in Bath, she becomes friends with a silly, shallow girl named Isabella and her brother John. Catherine quickly learns to dislike him. She also meets Henry Tilney and his sister Elinor. Their father invites Catherine to visit them at their home so she goes to stay at Northanger Abbey.

There were some parts of the movie that I didn't appreciate -- for a review that covers all the scenes click here (including one scene that was not shown on my station - PBS must have edited that one out). If they had left out the passage from a book Catherine reads aloud and removed one other scene, this movie would have been a great adaptation of the book. I thought the actors were all great for their roles. Catherine was exactly as I pictured her and her dresses were beautiful.

To sum it up, I liked most of the movie and the actors were great. Ninety-five percent of the time, it was a really fun, sweet movie. I just wish director Andrew Davies hadn't felt the need to "embellish" a simple story so much. I find that really annoying. It isn't necessary and it doesn't improve the story at all.