North & South
Platform: BritBox
Director: Brian Percival
Release Year: 2004
Watch Date: May 2, 2021
My Rating: 9.2
I have been doing a lot of sewing lately. When I sew I like to watch period drama mini series like North & South, Pride and Prejudice (the A&E version), Little Dorrit (my favorite), Wives and Daughters, Crawford, etc, or shows that I have seen before. The longer the better because then I don’t have to switch movies as often. They are mostly just there for the noise.
This four part miniseries done by BBC is based on a book by Elizabeth Gaskell. The basic story line is Pride and Prejudice-esk where Mr. John Thornton is prideful and Miss Margaret Hale is Prejudice. But while Elizabeth Bennett has several sisters, Margaret has one brother, and where Fitzwilliam Darcy inherited his money, John has worked hard for his.
I view Pride and Prejudice as kind of a Cinderella tale where the poor (I say poor because she will inherit no fortune on her father’s death) woman is whisked away by the rich man. “Saved” if you will….as with most fairy tales. In North & South it’s is actually quite the opposite.
Margaret’s father was a clergyman who left the church because he no longer had a belief in the book of common prayer. He moves his wife and daughter from the sunny prosperous south to the dirty industry driven town of Milton in the north of England. Here they live in a tiny house and the air is dirty and sooty. Milton has many prosperous cotton mills including the one owned by John.
Margaret is put off by John because he is harsh with one of his employees who risks setting the mill on fire. The rest of the story sees the two of them skirting in a dance of liking and not liking each other. The story touches on the topics of poverty, unions, strikes, death, love, loss, and sheer determination. Like Pride and Prejudice there comes a point where everything comes to a head.
Enter, Margaret’s brother, who found himself on the wrong side of the British Navy. John sees Margaret and her brother embracing at the train station and assumes they are secret lovers. A man recognizes the brother and gets into a tussle with him…falling down a flight of stairs and later dying. Margaret lies to the police about being at the station because her brother is still in England and will be tried for treason if caught. John is the town magistrate and knows that she lied. He covers for her.
After a lot of death and sadness, Margaret ends up inheriting a lot of money and property, which includes John’s mill. About the same time, John is about to lose the mill because he cannot pay his loan to the bank. The movie ends with the two happily riding off into the sunset on a train.
I’m a big fan of period dramas and I think this one is pretty amazing (not quite as good as Little Dorrit, but definitely up there). Even thought I have seen it a dozen times, I will watch it again.
Photo Credit: imdb.com
