Mansfield Park (1999)

Mansfield Park (1999) is an adaptation of a novel by Jane Austen by the BBC, but don’t stop reading. It gets better. The novel, which is told in a series of letters, would have made a very boring movie. What would move? The words. Yawn. Thankfully, the filmmakers chose to tell the story, set in the beginning of the 19th century, through action. The plot of a poor young girl who is given by her mother to rich relatives in hopes of a better life is ripe with drama, but riper still is the sight of nudity in a movie we weren’t expecting any. That comes from Victoria Hamilton, who is discovered in bed, naked. What a discovery!