A real pleasure to watch and by far superior to the later version with Sally Hawkins. (Sally Hawkins was fine but the whole later production looks like a cartoon version compared with this elaborate rendering of Jane Austen's world.) Amanda Root as Anne Elliot is perfect as the underestimated and unloved daughter of a spendthrift snob of a father and a stepmother right out of Grimm's fairy tales. (Not to speak of being henpecked by her hyper nervous younger married sister.) They filmmakers also managed to make Amanda Root look rather unattractive at the beginning and one wonders how any man could have been so much in love with her as the still lamented Frederick Wenthworth, whom she sent away on the heavy influence of her family, because he was a nobody with no regular income at the time. Years have past when we comes back into her neighbourhood, apparently haunting her serenity and feeling her more wrong then ever before. Cairán Hinds is equally good as the former lover Wenthworth, still hurt and trying hard to ignore Anne and seemingly having a good time without her. Once Wentworth pops up every now and then we notice that Anne begins to look more pretty, even the presence of the man she thinks she has lost forever make her look so much better.
The beauty of this version is not only grounded on the excellent cast but also in the magnificent eye for details, and, although only running a mere 100 minutes, gives the viewer the appropriate feeling of time passing by very slowly (don't get me wrong, I don't speak of the pace inside the story), but time that painfully slows down when being with people you despise or you feel dispised by. I always cherished this book by Jane Austen very much and I'm so glad that finally I found this film that really does it justice!
