Persuasion (2007).

When it comes to film adaptations of classic novels, I’m a purist – I want them to hew closely to the original text. The 2007 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion (showing on and off this week on PBS) was a disappointment, although unlike a lot of Janeites, I don’t view the 1995 version as all that great either.

Anne Elliott is a 27-year-old maiden who, eight years previously, was talked out of accepting a marriage proposal from a young naval officer named Frederic Wentworth; Anne’s father is a baronet, while Wentworth was untitled and poor, and therefore her family and a close family friend all urged her to decline the proposal. Eight years later, Frederic returns to Anne’s life via a small coincidence, still unattached but now quite wealthy, and apparently harboring a little resentment over the earlier snubbing.

The problem both filmed versions have revolves around Anne. In the book, Anne has a quiet strength of character and an unhappy acceptance of her maiden status, which, given her age, is presumed to be permanent. In both films, however, she’s a terrified little mouse – the 1995 version has Amanda Root (as Anne) wandering around with her eyes wide open in terror the entire time, while the 2007 version has Sally Hawkins trembling her lips half the time and bursting into tears whenever she’s alone. Anne Elliott was based somewhat on Jane Austen herself, and it’s hard to accept the character as an über-effeminate weakling.

Because the 2007 version is so short (under 90 minutes), most of the secondary characters get short shrift and find their foibles sharpened to caricature status. Anne’s father goes from an oblivious snob to a wastrel bore. Her sister Mary goes from a self-centered invalid to a sniveling witch. Her other sister, Elizabeth, mistreats Anne in the book but is barely evident in the novel. Anne’s cousin, Henrietta, is promised to a young curate in their parish who appears in the book but doesn’t appear at all in the film.

And the ending … ah, the ending. Suffice to say that an English lady would not be found running all over Bath, half out of breath, in search of anyone, and certainly wouldn’t be caught playing tonsil hockey in the middle of the street with the man of her dreams.

If you’ve read Persuasion – and if you haven’t, you should – and want to see a film version, go with the ’95 version, which is at least faithful to the text and long enough to bring out some of the subtler characterizations of the secondary figures. The 2007 version, unfortunately, seems destined to be a curiosity as a misguided attempt to improve on the prior version by making everything shorter and more severe.

This Sunday, PBS’ “Complete Jane Austen” series continues with a new adaptation of Austen’s Northanger Abbey, probably the least well-known of her six completed novels, featuring the silliest of her heroines.