Twitter isn’t here for an inconsistent Jane Austen adaptation and it’s easy to see why. Netflix dropped the trailer for Dakota Johnson-starrer Persuasion a few days ago. The upcoming film is based on the Jane Austen novel of the same name, which was published six months after her death and is often considered the author’s most radical work.

Theatre director Carrie Cracknell makes her feature debut with the movie that’s set to release on July 15 and also stars Richard E. Grant, Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding and Cosmo Jarvis.

Visually, the 2:35 trailer of the Regency-era film may come across as a watered-down Bridgerton — Shondaland's blockbuster Netflix series which ‘yass-ified’ the early 1800s, with sex, colour-blind casting and Taylor Swift covers. But the reason why Austenites on Twitter (a notoriously tough demographic to please) are raging against the Persuasion trailer is its rom-com treatment.

The trailer teases a love triangle, 4th wall breaks, will-they-won’t-they moments and a comedic narration — a substantial tonal shift from the source material, which was feted for its nuanced, restrained take on the themes of loss, resilience and second chances.

“Persuasion the novel is achingly sad, a story about a woman with very little kindness in her life who keeps all her pain to herself - not a gorgeous woman engaging in Ferris Bueller-style side-eyes and larks. Leave Anne Elliot for us sad plain women who love her, Netflix,” wrote a Tweeter.

Cracknell recently revealed her inspiration behind modernising the classic. “I think the humour absolutely speaks to Jane Austen’s writing, but it also has a sort of modernity. We really hoped it would help the material to connect with a new or younger audience,” the director said.

One could see the logic behind dialling down the intensity of the Austenian drama for the younger audience or even updating the humour. But Persuasion is not a straight-laced novel of manners and it’s definitely not a comedy. Anne Elliot’s (Johnson) depiction in the film is raising a lot of eyebrows for being inconsistent with Austen’s vision — the novel’s spinster heroine was decidedly different from most of Austen’s wistful younger protagonists and has intrigued academics for years.

Twitter has pointed out that not only does the film mess with the canon in terms of characterisation but has also dumbed down some of the most poignant lines in the film.

Twitter fears Cracknell’s attempts to produce a modern riff of an Austenian classic may render Persuasion a confused adaptation or, even worse, a faithless one. While Dakota’s Daphne Bridgerton-meets-Elizabeth Bennet energy is tailor-made for Netflix viewers, it remains to be seen if the film proves critics wrong.