`MANSFIELD' DIRECTOR ADDS MORE JANE TO AUSTEN'S ROMANTIC TALE.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

Recent years have brought us a number of Jane Austen movies, but no filmmaker has had the nerve to tackle her most challenging work, ``Mansfield Park,'' until now. For one thing, it's a big book, ideally suited for a miniseries (the BBC produced one in 1985). And its main character, a Regency period Cinderella named Fanny Brice, is passive and restrained, hardly the kind of heroine in which movies delight.

Filmmaker Patricia Rozema has solved that problem in her lively adaptation of ``Mansfield Park'' by going straight to the heroine's source - Ms. Austen herself. Rozema, who wrote and directed the film, consulted what remains of Austen's letters and journals to create a new Fanny, a headstrong writer with the sly sense of humor and distinct moral vision.

In doing this, Rozema has created a cinematic composite: part adaptation, part biography. Austen lovers, as well as moviegoers who love a good costume drama, should be pleased with the results.

When ``Mansfield Park'' opens, Fanny is 10 years old, living in a squalid, rat-infested home in Portsmouth. Her mother, wanting a better life for her eldest child, sends Fanny to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, at the solemn Mansfield Park. Life is easier here, but hardly rewarding. Fanny is treated as an inferior to the Bertrams' two daughters. (Lady Bertram tells them to prepare for ``gross ignorance.'') Her only solace comes from her kindhearted cousin Edmund, who encourages Fanny to pursue her passion for storytelling.

As Fanny (Frances O'Connor) becomes a young woman, she matures into a spirited and clever writer and begins to attract the attention of visitors to the estate. The arrival of the libidinous Henry Crawford (Alessandro Nivola) and his equally worldly sister, Mary (Embeth Davidtz), plays havoc with Mansfield's social order.

Henry becomes smitten with Fanny after a brief flirtation with the eldest (and engaged) Bertram sister, Maria (Victoria Hamilton). Mary zeros in on Edmund (Jonny Lee Miller), much to Fanny's silent consternation.

Mix in a host of unrequited loves, societal pressures and artful dialogue and you have all the trappings of an arousing Austen adaptation. That's not to say that all of Rozema's tinkerings add up. She flirts with a lesbian attraction between Fanny and Mary for no apparent reason and fails to generate enough convincing heat between Fanny and Edmund (it was OK to love your cousin in those days) to give their romance the necessary tension. The latter is a rather significant failing.

Rozema does play it deliciously close to the vest, though, when it comes to the true characters of the Crawfords, particularly the dashing Henry. Fanny, like Austen herself, has doubts about marriage, even though the institution was vitally important to a woman of her limited means. And Fanny, rightly or not, mistrusts Henry. In bringing the Crawfords' sexuality to the fore, Rozema gives the movie a force that many of these period pieces lack.

The cast is uniformly good. O'Connor, seen previously in the Australian comedy ``Love and Other Catastrophes,'' is a revelation as Fanny, bringing the heroine alive with a scintillating spark. Davidtz and Nivola pack plenty of heat as the cosmopolitan Crawfords, and playwright Harold Pinter is excellent as the fallible patriarch of Mansfield Park.

This isn't the best Austen adaptation to appear in recent years, but Rozema, with her revisions, has created a fresh piece of work and a fascinating heroine, a modern (for her time) woman that Jane Austen would undoubtedly have loved.

The facts

The film: ``Mansfield Park'' (PG-13; crude language and sex-related material).

The stars: Embeth Davidtz, Jonny Lee Miller, Alessandro Nivola, Frances O'Connor and Harold Pinter.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Patricia Rozema. Released by Miramax Films.

Running time: One hour, 52 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle's Sunset 5 in West Hollywood; Landmark's Westside Pavilion in West Los Angeles; Mann Criterion 6 in Santa Monica.

Our rating: Three stars.

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Photo

Photo: In a new adaptation of Jane Austen's ``Mansfield Park,'' Jonny Lee Miller and Frances O'Connor play kissing cousins.