North and South--It's not about the Civil War

Over the last two days I indulged and watched the movie North and South again. This was probably my 5th or 6th time seeing it. I just need to tell the world how great it is. First of all, as previously mentioned, this movie is not about the Civil War. The geographical regions referred to in the title are the turn-of-the-century industrial North of England and the agricultural South of England. The movie is based on a book by Elizabeth Gaskell. Here's the basic plot: Our main girl lives in Britain's southern countryside. Her father uproots her family to a northern industrial town. She hates everything about it, especially that exceptionally handsome man she meets. She finds out the man is actually a stellar fellow. After much turmoil, she changes her opinion about the North, marries man, lives in the North.

This may sound like another one of those I-hate-your-guts-let's-be-in-love period pieces, but it is actually a standout contribution to the BBC 18-19th century time period movie kingdom.

This movie is like Jane Austen for men. #1 male complaint about Jane Austen type movies:

The characters never DO anything!
They play cards, dance, and gossip. Boring!

To which the woman replies...that is true...but see how they looked at each other over the card table! See how he is watching her dance! Sigh.* Well, in this movie, we women don't have to make lame excuses like that. The characters are busy with their industry of making cotton. They work for a living! There's still lots of romance and meaningful glances, but for each dose of love in the movie, there is an equal dose of talk about free markets, labor unions, making a profit, class struggle, etc.

And through it all, the acting and screenwriting are fantastic. My favorite performance is by Brendan Coyle who plays the union leader Nicholas Higgins. I've seen him in a few other BBC productions, and he always does a fantastic job. The movie, even more than the book, makes us feel sympathetic towards many different people and groups of people in the different side plots. No part of the movie feels half-way developed, which is sometimes a hard trick to pull off with the book to movie gig. The screenplay was written by Sandy Welch who also wrote the outstanding television movie versions of Jane Eyre and Emma. She rocks. I'm no expert, but in my opinion, everything was done right with this movie. And I actually liked it better than the book.*

This is the Jane Austen* your man can stand.

*A note: For the purpose of this blog post, I made lots of generalizations about what men like and what women like. If your sensibilities were offended, please forgive me.
*A word of caution: The accents are pretty thick in this movie. Turn up the volume and don't watch it at a party, unless everyone at the party is willing to stop talking and listen carefully. Doesn't sound like much of a party.
*Another note: The book North and South is not written by Jane Austen.