Review – North & South

I have discovered my new Pride and Prejudice in the form of yet another wonderful BBC miniseries. Yes, another 4-episode epic has proved to be just as wonderful as the old Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle classic. It’s called North & South, based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell.

The series follows the story of Margaret Hale (Daniela Denby-Ashe – quite lovely), a young woman from southern England who has to move to the North, to the heavily industrial town of Milton, after her father decides to leave the clergy. The family struggles to adjust itself to the industrial town’s customs, especially after meeting the Thorntons, a proud family of cotton mill owners, who seem to be quite proud of their station in life and tend to look down slightly on those “beneath” them. The story includes many issues of both class and gender, and follows an important sub-plot involving work conditions in the cotton mills, revolving around a worker’s strike. The struggles of the workers, combined with a few other incidents, create difficulties for the hesitant romance that might be developing between Margaret and John Thorntan (Richard Armitage), the head of the Thorntan household.

Set in a slightly different time period, the costumes are different than those in the Austen adaptations, offering a beautiful variety to the lover of the period romantic drama. This work also includes a bit more seriousness than Austen had worked with. Yes, Austen included strife here and there, but usually in the form of reputation and precarious fortunes and such, where as in North & South, the story deals with the heavier topic of working conditions, unions and strikes in that time period, etc. Sure, these heavier topics are told with a slightly upbeat turn, definitely not told with as much reality as it could have been, but still showing enough of the poorer side of life to get the point across.

The romance was sweet and wonderful and every bit as fantastic as Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett’s story. A tad predictable,  yes, but who cares? Those who will be watching this sort of film know what to expect. But this movie won’t disappoint any fan of Austen. I would heartily recommend this to anybody who likes Austen or any period romance in the slightest … and has about 4 hours of free time on their hands.