Women in Love

FANFAIR

THE BBC'S LATEST FROCK-AND-BONNET CLASSIC

For those of you still in thrall to the BBC Pride and Prejudice of 1996. it's time to give Miss Austen a rest—and Mrs. Gaskell a go. Andrew Davies and Sue Birtwistle, the BBC team that brought us P&P, have now filmed Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1866 novel. Wives and Daughters—bliss in four installments, beginning August 5 on BBC America. Where Austen is a musician in the drawing room, society fingered in quadrilles and counterpoints, Gaskell, like a good Victorian, is a naturalist in the field, netting the prides and pains, loves and deaths, of a whole social order, from laborer to lord.

Gaskell holds her magnifying glass most steadily on 17-year-old Molly Gibson, a "good girl" with a feisty temper. But at the heart of Wives and Daughters is something far more moving than any one person: it is the bond, the trust, between Molly and her widower father, Mr. Gibson. When he marries again -to a not deep widow' with a flashy daughter Molly's age -the stage is set for all kinds of wiles and marital calculations. Leave it to England to pop out a perfect girl for every role. As Molly, Justine Waddell is Little Miss Muflet in a briar of dark curls, her wide-open face capable of minute inflections. Strangely, her left eyebrow curves, while her right is pointy, just like Molly's character: curves and points. Keeley Hawes as Cynthia, the new stepsister, catches the gawky charm of the insecure coquette, while her mother, played by Francesca Annis. is a treacle version of Austen’s awful Mrs. Bennet. As for the blonde goddess who plays young Lady Harriet, Rosamund Pike (there’s a name!), she's a banner snapping in the breeze. These women are wonderful.

And the senior men are superb. Michael Gambon as Squire Hamley is beyond acting he's like an old spaniel, game, true, but with touches of tantrum. Bill Paterson’s Mr. Gibson is pointed and fair (you see where Molly gets it), but more than that, he hears his wife and daughters, lets you feel a man's momentary loss, even hurt, in the face of female reasoning, and doesn't turn away. He makes you see what a sad lot the fathers in Jane Austen really are. (Rating: ★★★★)

LAURA JACOBS