North and South movie review

No, I haven't disappeared! Just haven't found time to post lately. Firstly, I've decided to change my blog name. !!! I just think Margaret is too young for me ;-) so I'll be changing my name to Elizabethany--a cross between Elizabeth(Bennet) and my real name, Bethany.

Secondly, I'm getting a leetle bit tired of updating separate pages, so I'll be working on changing those too.


Thirdly, this post was supposed to be a movie review of North and South. I LOVE IT!! And I love the book too.......I will be comparing the movie and the book quite a bit. We borrowed the series from a friend. I was wondering why the cover said John Thornton was "charismatic." Is he charismatic????

Thorin. Heehee.

Anyway. Set in early- mid-1800's England,the main plot is that Margaret Hale, her mother, father and servant Dixon are moving to the northern town of Milton, leaving their paradise-like Southern country vicarage home after Mr. Hale has resigned his position as a clergyman in the Church of England. The book didn't really explore what he had doubts about.....the movie tried to explain it, which was helpful to understand why Mr. Hale would uproot his family. Margaret, who has been living with her rich aunt and recently-married cousin, returns to her home, Helstone, only to find that she is leaving it. Her cousin's brother-in-law, Henry Lennox, pays a visit and proposes to her. Margaret declines as she does not love him.

When they arrive in Milton, her first impressions of the place are unfavourable, especially after witnessing Mr. Thornton, the owner of Marlborough Mills, beat a worker for smoking. That was NOT in the book. I don't think it should have been in the movie either. Anyway, it certainly prejudices Margaret against him! The family gradually adjust to life in Milton, although Mrs. Hale soon becomes ill. Margaret meets Nicholas and Bessy Higgins, a mill worker and his daughter, and finds unlikely friends in them. Mr. Thornton's mother and sister Fanny visit the Hales but are not disposed to befriend them. The Miltonians regard the Hales as the upstart and prideful family of a renegade clergyman. Their only friend is their landlord, Mr. Bell. Mr. Hale gives lectures to earn money, and Mr Thornton is one of his most diligent pupils. Secretly, Mr. Thornton begins to admire Margaret, although she greatly dislikes him. The mill workers unite and plan a strike, tired of their low wages. The strike is led by Nicholas. Meanwhile Bessy is dying of a lung illness. Mr. Thornton brings in Irish workers to supply the place of the strikers, causing an uproar.

I love this scene!!

Margaret is calling at the Thorntons' requesting the loan of a waterbed for her ailing mother when the strikers attack the mill and are soon rioting outside the doors of the house. Urged by Margaret to face them like a man, Mr. Thornton confronts the rioters. Margaret sees that one of them is aiming a rock at him and throws herself in front of him. She is struck by the rock and becomes unconscious. Recovering soon, however, she insists on returning home, and the strikers are dispersed by the soldiers. The next day Mr. Thornton feels he must propose to Margaret. His mother dislikes her, but will not stand in his way. Accordingly he proposes, but Margaret, whose pride misrepresents his character to her, refuses him. Mrs. Hale is near death, and Margaret writes to her brother, who is living in exile in Spain after he was forced to take part in a mutiny, telling him to come home to see his mother one last time. Soon after he arrives, Mrs. Hale dies, after having asked Mrs. Thornton to be a mother to Margaret. Mr. Thornton sees Margaret hugging Frederick goodbye at the train station late at night and assumes it is another lover.

Margaret, Frank Churchill and Mrs. Rose-- I mean Frederick and Mrs. Hale

 His opinion of her sinks. A man attacks Frederick at the station. Fred, defending himself and Margaret, causes him to take a fall that proves fatal. After her brother escapes, Margaret is questioned by a police officer concerning her presence during the fight. She denies it, not without guilt--which, by the way, I don't think was right--Fred was out of the country by then--but it is due to Mr. Thornton's efforts that the case is not pursued. Bessy Higgins dies, to Margaret's sadness. So does one of the strikers, Boucher, who drowns himself as his family is starving. Mrs Boucher--whose character was not really explored in the movie but who is a whining, selfish mother in the book--dies soon afterwards, and Nicholas and his other daughter Mary take in the six orphaned Boucher children.

Fanny. Is. Hilarious.

Fanny Thornton marries a Mr. Watson, who advises Mr. Thornton to take part in a business speculation that could save the mill, which has fallen on hard times. Thornton refuses to risk the livelihood of his men, but the scheme succeeds, to Fanny's triumph. Mr. Bell convinces Mr. Hale to accompany him to an Oxford reunion, where Margaret's father dies unexpectedly. Left an orphan, Margaret becomes Mr. Bell's heir to a large amount of money. Mr. Bell also dies and leaves her a great fortune. Margaret visits her aunt in London, where she hears that Marlborough Mills has failed. Her feelings toward Mr. Thornton have changed so much that she proposes the loan of her money to him until he can get the mill up and running again. Mr. Thornton proposes a second time and is gladly accepted. All in all a happy ending.

Nicholas and Bessy Higgins

Mrs Thornton

"OHH!! Miss Hale!!"