The Regency romcom comes with impressive credentials, but it's a complete mess.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 11, 2024

Austen has been refashioned before. But Persuasion wants both worlds – the updated story and the historical setting. However, not only does this modern edge not gel with the original novel, but it leads to a questionable tone.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2024

Undersells its source material and underestimates Jane Austen fans.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Jul 12, 2024

This version of Persuasion has a few terrific things about it, but the overall package is…less than persuasive.

| Original Score: C | Jul 3, 2024

If you take it completely on its own terms and don't see it as an Austen adaptation, there's stuff in it that is fun.

| Feb 6, 2024

Don’t waste your precious time on a film that so profoundly misunderstands the work that it is based on that it makes one wonder if anyone involved in the production actually read the novel.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Sep 17, 2023

The anachronistic armchair psychology about narcissism and self-care could work if the proceedings were not so dull and angst-filled.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 16, 2023

Persuasion (2022) does not entirely work because it’s afraid to fully commit to the screwball comedy stylings the film briefly touches upon.

| Aug 6, 2023

It’s not a bad film, but it’s not a good one either, falling somewhere closer to just “okay.”

| Jul 23, 2023

Dakota Johnson, as always, looks like a painting in Persuasion. She is so effortlessly hilarious, charming, and undoubtedly gorgeous.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 20, 2023

For every viewer cheering on an Austen adaptation doing something new and a bit exciting there’s another in need of smelling salts.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 9, 2023

It’s unfortunate that even my love for Jane Austen could not get me to feel connected to this story...The film attempts to convey coyness and comedy and it leads itself to making Persuasion feel hollow, messy, and boring.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Jan 4, 2023

Like its heroine, Persuasion has an identity crisis.

| Sep 6, 2022

“Persuasion” isn’t a very good movie. It’s flat and lacks the spark that it needs to make us care.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 30, 2022

The idea that the film does not actually like its heroine is the most interesting thing about this adaptation … But ultimately, [its] other creative choices left me annoyed.

| Aug 29, 2022

Persuasion hamstrings Austen's lyrical reflections and snappy exchanges with deadened modern jargon in a blatant attempt to remould the story as befits Netflix's demographic pandering.

| Aug 29, 2022

Persuasion never gets to truly take off because it is trying to be both modern and period. There is far too much winking towards the camera.

| Aug 26, 2022

There’s nothing wrong with updating Austen, but this isn’t so much updating the book as performing a gut renovation.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 24, 2022

a revolutionary and entirely charming new interpretation of the material.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 4, 2022

[W]ith sincere apologies to the Austenheads out there, I enjoyed it well enough. Though I don’t expect I’ll be able to persuade you.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 4, 2022