Nathaniel Pockras

If not for the names of the characters and of the places where this was set, I might not have recognised this as my favourite Austen novel. It's full of profound anachronisms, e.g. "we're exes", "self-care", and Africans being accepted in upper-class English society. (Compare with the last concept's treatment in "The Adventure of the Yellow Face", eighty years later.) The whole section on Mrs Smith is totally omitted. The characters are unbelievable, e.g. how could Sir Walter think the baronetcy was of divine appointment, when the concept had only existed for 200 years? I understand why they kept breaking the fourth wall, since it's hard to understand a character's thoughts when she has no confidantes (no Jane Bennet or Edmund Bertram to hear Anne's words), but they're highly distracting; it feels like we're watching "The Office", not a set of real people in a real situation. Had the director used the rabbit as her confidante, the same effect would have been accomplished in a much more "realistic" manner.