Northanger Abbey

Catherine Morland is a young woman buried in gothic novels with an imagination working overtime. Arriving in Bath, she meets for the first time a world of balls, gossip and arithmetic about money. Then she is invited to the Tilney family home and sets about applying the logic of her novels to an actual house. Jane Austen's early novel is already mocking its own genre, and the adaptation keeps that. What Catherine imagines is staged on screen, so we see the horrors she expects and then watch the ordinary truth turn up right behind them. It was made for television and it is short. Felicity Jones plays Catherine and JJ Feild is Henry Tilney, who teases her without ever making her ridiculous. The limits are budget and running time. Ninety minutes dissolves much of the novel's social detail, the second half rushes its turns, and several supporting characters shrink to a single trait. Who it is for: people who enjoy Austen adaptations. Who it is not for: viewers expecting a large scale period production.