Captain Frederick Wentworth

Okay, this is crazy to me.

It's about a very, very brief romance between Anne and Frederick Wentworth when they're 19.

Okay.

The same age.

So it's like, so, so Bath as a city- Um, you can feel that connection with Austen, and I think because like the pre- yes, like you say, the preservation of the buildings, the way that it's a, a World Heritage Site, um, and, and there is just a sense of, you know, because you absolutely know from the descriptions in her novels, you know, of the location of where the characters are.

And so you can sort of say, "This is where, you know, this is where Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth were reunited on the gravel walk, you know, behind the Royal Crescent." And it's that sort of thing, you know, you, you...

This is where it happened.

And so she, she put so much of that into the novels.

Much heavier.

Eight years before the story begins, Anne followed bad advice and broke off her engagement to Captain Frederick Wentworth due to class differences.

Which was devastating.

Devastating.

Which is surprising.

It is.

But the version that takes the number four spot on this list, the one most fans agree is the definitive take, is the 1995 BBC version starring Amanda Root as Anne Elliot and Ciaran Hinds as Captain Frederick Wentworth.

And what is so striking about this 1995 version is why it works.

Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which had drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description or some lines of feeling." Later in the walk, they near Winthrop, and Henrietta goes to call on her cousin, Charles Hayter.

While she is gone, Anne painfully overhears a conversation between Louisa and Captain Wentworth, in which both protest vehemently against those who are easily persuaded by others to do something that they have set their heart upon.

"'And so I made her go.

I could not bear that she should be frightened from the visit by such nonsense.

[piano music]

[piano music]The young people were all wild to see Lyme.

Captain Wentworth talked of going there again himself.

It was only seventeen miles from Uppercross.

And I like that low key, low key, that Darcy's off the market because he's engaged with Miss Bingley kind of gave more room to breathe for them to talk.

It's also very similar to the other one where Elizabeth claimed that she was engaged to, what's the persuasion guy? Captain Wentworth.

Wentworth, yeah.

And that gave like, that like relieved the

Exactly.

Now, eight years ago, Anne was deeply in love and actually engaged to Frederick Wentworth, who was a naval officer.

He was brilliant but utterly penniless.

A very bad match according to society.

Right.

Eight years prior to the start of the novel, Anne was deeply in love with a young, ambitious, but entirely unwealthy naval officer named Captain Frederick Wentworth.

But she was persuaded, pressured by her snobbish family and a well-meaning mentor to break off the engagement because he lacked social standing.

It was a decision made out of duty and fear of societal judgment, much like the choices Ivan Ilyich made.

Anne indulges Henrietta in this conversation and glories in the sea.

They run into Wentworth and Louisa on the same walk, and as they are all returning to the inn to have breakfast, they pass a man.

A respectable-looking man in mourning clothes, M-O-U-R-N.

A not-bad-looking man, and he and Anne majorly eye-fuck.

Wentworth clocks it and looks at Anne as if to say, quote, even I see something like Anne Elliot again.

Boom! When they get back to the inn, it's clear that the man had been staying at the same inn, but he's leaving.

Then it becomes clear that he is Mr. Elliot, Anne and Mary's cousin who will inherit Kellynch Hall.

Mary is all a flutter.

And, you know, that I don't want to be with a weak person anyway, blah, blah, blah.

And that gave me very much those Captain Wentworth vibes of like, I don't want to love her because if she really loved me, she would have fought for us.

And then Caroline actually, or Beans, actually tells him, like, was it, is it no, no, no, it's Charlie.

Charlie tells him that, did you ever think that maybe she needed you to fight for her? And he just kind of accepted it and walked away.

Lady Russell is returning to Kellynch, and Anne will go stay with her.

Wentworth, in the meantime, has been gone for 24 hours.

It turns out that he heard a good friend of his from the Navy was pretty close by in Lyme, and Wentworth went down to see him, a Captain Harville.

Wentworth gives such a positive report of Lyme and Captain Harville that all the young people decide to go visit.

Mary, Charles, Louisa, Henrietta, Wentworth, and Anne.

They'll go for just 24 hours, look at the sea, and meet Wentworth's friends.

It's November, so the sea town is mostly shut up.

But it's still beautiful.