ALREADY courting controversy in some quarters, notably among the Jane Austen purists and the press, is Canadian Patricia Rozema's adaptation of Jane Austen's most uncinematically-minded novel. What Rozema has done here though is to just flesh out the heroine to make her more appealing to mainstream audiences and to play up the impact of the abolition of the slave trade on the Mansfield Park estate, only hinted at in the book.

Storywise, Fanny Price (Frances O'Connor) is sent as a child from a poor family in Portsmouth to live with richer relatives who agree to bring her up. She goes to stay with Sir Thomas Bertram (Harold Pinter) and his family and there meets reserved but intuitive Edmond (Jonny Lee Miller), daughters Maria and Julia, the outgoing Crawfords: Mary (Embeth Daviditz) and dashing but insincere Henry (Allesandro Nivola). Although Fanny is below her peers in terms of class, she grows in stature as the heroine of the piece.

Rozema has succeeded in bringing out many of the subtle nuances of the pieces as well as raising the book to a slightly steamier level (there is one graphic love scene between Henry and Maria towards the end) and giving the period drama a sharper, more contemporary edge to appeal to contemporary audiences. For sure artistic licence has been taken in places (largely to make the adaptation more cinematic) but much of what is on the page has made it to the screen.

Like Pride and Prejudice, this is a masterful evocation of the sharp ironies and witty exchanges that Austen herself saw in the characters she created. It's well worth seeing if this is the type of film you'd go for and the performances are first-rate, particularly from Frances O'Connor as Fanny Price, Pinter as Bertram and Jonny Lee Miller surprisingly cast but turning in a memorable performance as Edmund.