North and South

3 1/2 stars

This was a BBC Miniseries done a few years ago, and was just recommended to me by my friend Ami. She saw it and liked it, and figured I would like it (she knows me very well). It was written by Elizabeth Gaskell, excuse my ignorance, but I didn't know who that was. I looked her up and she was a British author in the 1800's and was friends with Charlotte Bronte and wrote a biography of her life. Anyway, this is a Austin-esque story, but besides a romantic entanglement, has added things Austin didn't deal with. The story is about a young women that moves from Southern England with her parents to the more industrial North. She meets a Cotton Mill owner and dislikes him right away, thinks he is cruel to his workers. He likes her right away, but they are at odds because they don't understand each other. We see the driving force behind his actions and see him to be an extremely good man, while she doesn't, she just sees the cruelty. There is a worker's strike in the movie that goes badly, the history of those labor unions and stuff and the quandry everyone finds themselves in while striking was very interesting to me.
The love story is very Elizabeth/Mr. Darcy like, he proposes mid way through, she totally dislikes and misunderstands him so turns him down rudely, then finally does like him and understands him better, but gets herself into a misunderstanding, you know the story. Good stuff. Wonderful ending in a train station, worth all 4 hours.
So, lovers of period pieces and Jane Austin, this movie is totally worth your time! Now, the reason it didn't get 4 solid stars, is yes, there is a little cheesiness, I had to knock half a star for that. A few cringe worthy moments (some horrible dream sequence/flashback things) that were so cheesy! Also, John's sister (the main dude) plays her part a little over the top, sometimes I laughed, but sometimes I cringed a little. Here is the deal with that. I don't know about the rest of you, but sometimes, in the name of a good story, you have to block out a few moments where the cheese is high. You must forgive and move on. This movie is worth that. I liked how it wasn't just high society, it delved into old industrial England and problems of the lower class. Anyway, the lead actors were good, he especially, I thought his performance was totally flawless. Rob and Matt will definitely skip this one (I don't know about dad's stand on this particular genre, but gut says, he will make fun of it.) However, Amy and Haley, this is right up your alley! I am sure you will love it. Mom too, but I don't know how much of this info she gets, tell her about it. In fact, I haven't read the book, but imagine it would be very good book club material, with all the added parts of the story to talk about. Totally check it out.
I watched it in 3 nights. Again, it's on Netflix instant (I am beginning to wonder what I ever did without that), and divided up in 4 one hour installments, so I watched one a night, and then last night, just had to watch the last two! Miniseries are good that way, you can break them up into do-able segments, instead of like a 3 hour movie, I like that.