Fielding turned this story wildly upside down in a novel about Pamela's brother, Joseph, a serving boy who is as innocent as his sister but not nearly as calculating, who must fight off all sorts of lewd advances and whose triumph is one of true virtue rather than greed.

Joseph's heart belongs to a country girl, foundling Fanny Goodwill, but his masters take him on a trip to fashionable Bath, where spoiled society comes mainly to see and be seen.

The parson prevents an attempted rape by a squire, and barely escapes a wicked gentleman's totally unjust justice after being accused of it – he comes to learn of a significant child theft by gypsies.

...The film is ... an almost perfect blending of beauty, romance and adventure, of landscapes too lovely to believe alternating with the kind of gritty period detail that prompts one character (Squire Thomas) to say of a street jam in the resort city of Bath, 'The only things that move here are the bowels of the horses.

David Watkin's cinematography was praised as clever and particularly reflective of the period depicted, demonstrating a "painterly quality" and an artistic use of lighting.