Beating Netflix’s (entirely unnecessary) remake of “Pride and Prejudice,” the BBC’s spinoff “The Other Bennet Sister” and French rom-com “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” to the proverbial punch, the 250th birthday celebrations of arguably Britain’s most cherished novelist begins with a four-part drama focusing on her elder sister.
For many literary scholars, Cassandra Austen is a villainess of Miss Norris-esque proportions. After all, her deliberate burning of her sibling’s vast personal correspondence — only 160 of her approximately 3,000 letters are still intact — largely thwarted any attempt to further understand the famously elusive author. However, “Miss Austen,” itself based on Gill Hornby’s same-named piece of historical fiction, does its best to exonerate her reputation as a cultural vandal.
The BBC original certainly comes with an impressive period drama pedigree. Director Aisling Walsh won a BAFTA for her post-war miniseries “Room at the Top,” while leading lady Keeley Hawes made her name in Charles Dickens retelling “Our Mutual Friend” and the slightly more sapphic 19th century tale “Tipping the Velvet.” But although the show quite happily leans into all the familiar tropes — there are still plenty of bonnets and bodices, debonair suitors, and societal gatherings — it’s not afraid to elegantly stray from the well-trodden path, either.
Indeed, there’s an ethereal, dream-like quality to how the narrative meanders rather than motors, repeatedly flashing back from the “modern-day” setting of 1830 (13 years after Jane’s death) to the sisters’ late teenage years. The clever manner its literary idol’s works are referenced throughout also provides the most meta Austen-adjacent work since “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”: see how matchmaking maid Dinah (Mirren Mack) is inspired to engineer a romantic encounter after hearing a reading of “Persuasion” or the debate sparked about Jane’s true masterpiece.
And the central love story doesn’t involve a noble esquire with a penchant for plunging fully clothed into lakes, but instead simply the two Austens, both of whom never got the chance to change their title from Miss to Mrs. As the older Cassandra opines, “There is no greater comfort in this world than a sister.”
The latter’s redemption arc begins when, on learning family friend Fulwar Fowle (Felix Scott) is on his deathbed, she makes the lengthy trip to offer her support. Well, that and recover any potentially incriminating letters sent between his late wife and her dearly departed sister. “I know my demeanor may not suggest it, but I hope that I’m still capable of untying a ribbon,” she bites on her arrival to the help, proving an acerbic way with words runs in the family.
Hawes — who by playing 70 aged just 48 proves it’s not just Hollywood prone to casting impossibly young — brings just the right amount of steely determination to a character toughened by the tragedies that have befallen her. Underneath the resilient exterior, though, there’s also a warmth, as exemplified by how she cares for Fulwar’s daughter Isabella (Rose Leslie), a young woman who loses her father and — thanks to the vicarage’s highly unsympathetic successor — also her home in quick succession.
Most impressively, Hawes achieves the tricky feat of processing Jane’s musings — narrated from beyond the grave — and the personal pain often inflicted by them without resorting to melodramatics. Of course, such letters are entirely imagined, the real Cassandra’s arsonist tendencies ensuring that we’ll never know their true contents. But they’re presented here, like “Miss Austen” itself, as understated yet impactful, a mixture of alternative recollections and telling observations which although far from the scandalous one may have expected, still leave its reader reeling.
Synnøve Karlsen, perfectly cast having played Hawes’ daughter in “The Midwich Cuckoos,” also impresses as the younger Cassandra, even making blatant foreshadowing as “All will be well, I know it” and “I will never marry any other man than you” sound entirely natural. It’s her heart-rending relationships with the Fowles’ ill-fated seafarer Tom (Calam Lynch) and the entirely fictional philosopher Henry Hobday (Max Irons) which essentially allows “Miss Austen” to have its cake and eat it.
Elsewhere, Jessica Hynes threatens to steal the show as the older Mary, drawing upon her sitcom background (“The Royle Family,” “Spaced”) to serve up a string of acidic one-liners which provide some light relief from all the mourning and melancholia. “You seem quite worn out from resting,” being the most brilliantly cutting. Meanwhile, Alfred Enoch joins the Austen canon of dashing gentlemen as Mr. Lidderdale, the kind-hearted physician who ensures there’s at least one swoonworthy kiss.
However, it’s Olivier Award winner Patsy Ferran who proves to be the MVP as the most famous Austen, channeling a level of charisma, intelligence, and wit which suggests her company was as captivating as her writing. “Happiness in a married woman is irksome to witness, and yet the single lady spreads universal delight,” comes just one of many zingers delivered with a winning zeal.
Ferran is just as compelling when such vibrancy and vitality gives way to dejection and disharmony as her aspiring writing career grinds to a halt and her health starts to deteriorate. Screenwriter Andrea Gibb, another key name in the all-woman production, captures Jane’s voice so remarkably you could easily believe “Miss Austen” had been penned by the real thing.
The sisters’ unbreakable, and some would say slightly too codependent, bond never feels anything less than authentic, too, whether they’re giddily gossiping in bed or chastising each other for their contrasting approaches to marriage, a subject society continually forces them to address.
“Everything one needs to know about Jane Austen is to be found within the pages of her novels,” Cassandra claims as Mary reveals plans to publish her own tell-all biography. The slowly unfolding yet ultimately rewarding “Miss Austen” convincingly speculates this was far from the case. It also argues just as persuasively that far from the twisted firestarter history depicts, her closest confidante did, in fact, have the makings of a heroine.
“Miss Austen” premieres Sunday, May 4 at 9 p.m. ET on Masterpiece, with new episodes released weekly.
