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Pretty much every single character in this series is smarter than our entire current cabinet put together. (I'm writing this in 2025.)

I grew up in the Foreign Service, although not nearly at the heights the people here inhabit. But I can say that almost everyone in this excellent series is far more intelligent, informed, and capable than most of the FSOs I knew. Not including my own family of course, whose FSO was in fact intelligent, informed, and capable, and at one point was able to make a big difference for a lot of people.

I love Austen, and there have been some stellar adaptations. This is not one of them.

Some very weird directorial decisions were made here, few of them good.

Let's begin with the leading lady. Sally Hawkins is an able actor, I have seen her in other things, but she was poorly directed in this. In the opening scene, she is bustling about Kellynch Hall with a clipboard as they prepare to leave, and her mouth is open the entire time. In fact, her mouth is hanging open for most of the movie, and it got annoying and distracting. Ann Elliott, her character, is genial and accommodating, but this film portrays her as a such a shrinking violet that she seems to be flinching at every moment. She has no personality. The character in the book is spoken of as very capable, which she has to be, as her father and sisters are hopelessly deluded. She is the realistic, intelligent one who gets things done and is able to laugh at herself and her family. But in this version, she is passive, timorous, and humorless.

Through no fault of the actors, all of whom are solid performers with good track records, most of the rest of the characters are equally poorly delineated, very one-dimensional. The humor and verve of the novel are completely lost, so the baronet was not amusingly vain, he is just a peevish fool. Elizabeth was not absurd in her conceit, she was just a b-word. Mary was just a silly snob. None of the wit of their portrayals was present.

There are some very odd camera angles and framing. The close-ups are sometimes uncomfortably close for no reason. Scenes that should have been mid-range group shots were spliced up into individual close-ups that didn't make any sense, and at odd angles, so it was choppy and uncomfortable. There is nothing wrong with odd angles per se, but they should serve a purpose, create a particular mood, highlight an aspect of a situation. These instances did not. They were just weird.

There is one scene in which two of the men are walking along the seawall in Lyme, and they are getting drenched with sea spray and waves breaking over the wall. It was ridiculous. No sane person would be walking along the seawall in those conditions. I felt bad for the actors. They were soaking wet. They must have been freezing. Why? There was no call for this at all. It's not a dramatic scene, it was just a basic walk and talk. If they wanted scenic, there's oodles of scenery where they're not in danger of being dashed into the ocean or contracting pneumonia. I was so distracted by the soaking that I had to rewind to listen to what they were actually saying. More pointless weirdness.

In another scene, Ann is bustling around in mixed company in a state of undress that no lady of the time would ever consider remotely proper, especially one portrayed as so demure. She's in her chemise with her robe falling off her shoulders. It was senseless and conspicuously weird. In that same scene, she also resets someone's broken collarbone! What? When on earth would she have learned to do such a thing?

For some reason the decision was made to alter the ending so that poor Ann is literally running around Bath like a madwoman, breathless and ridiculous.

Odd decisions and poor direction spoiled this for me.

This series is beautifully done from every point of view. Very faithful to the book and, what's better, able to communicate the novel's themes and spiritual concerns with grace, clarity, and subtlety. The acting is superb all around; I don't think the three main actors-- Anthony Andrews, Diana Quick, and Jeremy Irons-- have ever surpassed their performances here, with the possible exception of Irons in Cronenberg's 'Dead Ringers.' This series is a pleasure to watch. It is beautiful intelligent, and profound.

I saw it many years ago when it came out, and it stayed with me. I recently re-watched it to see if it was as impressive as I remembered, and indeed it was, even better now that my comprehension and life experience are wider.

Of course, this is not the series' doing, but you gotta love the names: Charles Ryder, Jeremy Irons's character, a man who is essentially a passenger in life, finding irresistible love and the discovery of God through the Flyte family. Although he wrestles mightily with it, it is ultimately the family's complex, problematic, but deep connection to their religion that keeps him coming back after the idyllic charm of his initial attraction to them wears off. The love affairs are by turns exquisite and later, as he matures and the world grows darker, complicated. Coming as he does from a dust-dry household devoid of emotional expression, the passionate albeit conflicted nature of the Flytes is irresistible to him. Mention must be made of the wonderful low key comic performance by Sir John Gielgud as his father, and that of Simon Jones as the eldest Flyte brother.

Highly recommended.

It is rare that a film or TV series is as good as the book, but this is one of those times.