Mansfield Park: Critic Reviews

It's alluring to see a costume drama that takes us inside the subtlest, most wrenching realities of money.

Even if you have never read Austen, you will sense that something is wrong here long before a nude scene that would have made the author hide under a table.

Patricia Rozema's Mansfield Park continues Jane Austen's winning streak on film.

Rozema's movie ... in trying so hard to entertain, ends up sabotaging itself.

While this version plays somewhat fast and loose with the original story, and even more so with the heroine's character, it is still much more Jane Austen than not.

Spins the most interesting modern re-interpretation of the Austen canon.

Too often steps out of its era to adopt a knowing, politically correct, late-20th-century attitude to the society portrayed.

Full of sparkling dialogue, witty asides, and top-drawer performances, Mansfield Park is a social satire wrapped inside a romantic comedy.

Mansfield Park is quick and funny, and a refreshing break from period-film stuffiness.

A fine addition to the filmed Austen canon.

Though it's never dull, this Mansfield Park has too much of its own agenda and too little of Austen's to completely succeed.

Wonderful book adaptation with strong female character.

Mansfield Park works because it not only comes from the novel...but also from Austen's letters and journals.

While Mansfield Park doesn't boast the high calibre Hollywood star wattage and gloss of Sense and Sensibility, it offers a more thought-provoking viewpoint.

...busy nothings add up to motion picture somethings in one of the year's most charming films.

Despite such occasional flaws...Mansfield Park is a welcome treat for Austen addicts.

A powerful portrait of a determined young woman's quest to remain true to the vastness of her spirit and soul.

An uneven but ultimately stirring adaptation from Canadian director Patricia Rozema.

Rozema's thoughtful pacing and deliberately modern spin on the tale keep the rot from setting in.

This is merely another attempt at making a high-class art film that can't come close to the spirit of the literary book it is based on.

This is still Austen 100%, but it's Austen with an edge. Readers may protest. Viewers will rejoice.

[Mansfield Park] is a smart hybrid: part novel adaptation, part biography. It's now a period saga overlaid with a modern sensibility.

This Mansfield Park becomes a kind of romanticized gloss -- an imaginative grad-student thesis that melds author and character.

Rozema's previous films...contain an almost magical-realism, with their vivid colors and strong focus on female sexuality. She attempts to work a similar magic here, but Mansfield Park's narrative and erotic currents are much more prosaic.

A witty, entertaining film.