Pride & Prejudice
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Movie Reviews of Pride & Prejudice
Movie Review: "You have bewitched me, body and soul"
Summary: 5 Stars
Okay, I admit it: I went into watching Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of PRIDE & PREJUDICE with some trepidation, for a couple of reasons. 1.) Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is one of my favorite novels, and I didn't want to see Austen's story metamorphose into something it wasn't on the big screen. And 2.) I am a huge fan of the BBC version, so I felt I had a lot to compare this new adaptation of the film to--and could it measure up to the high standards set by Austen and the BBC film (and Colin Firth's performance, in particular)? The answer to that question, I discovered after seeing it, is, as Jane Bennet would say, "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!"
PRIDE & PREJUDICE tells the story of the Bennet family in rural England during the late 1700s. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five daughters of the marrying age and, with no son to carry on the family name, the anxious Mrs. Bennet (played brilliantly by Brenda Blethyn) is desperate to get her daughters married off to the richest, most eligible young suitors. Enter Mr. Bingley, who has just bought a large property near the Bennet home, and who at once becomes entranced with the eldest Miss Bennet, Jane. He brings Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfayden), his haughty and even richer friend, with him to the country. Darcy immediately clashes with the next eldest Bennet sister, Elizabeth (Keira Knightley). Elizabeth is strong-willed, opinionated, and prideful, and she resents Darcy's condescending air and haughty attitude. Darcy resents Elizabeth's low rank in society and lewd family. A series of chance encounters, however, gradually begin to change their opinions of one another--but both Darcy and Elizabeth have too much "pride and prejudice" to admit to their attraction and give in to the love of their lives.
Austen-ite purists beware: Wright (and screenwriter Deborah Moggach) have taken liberties with the film. The Elizabeth and Darcy we see on screen are younger than Austen's version of the characters. The story takes place in the more rural England of the 1790's, rather than in the early 19th century of Austen's novel. The roles of many characters are reduced for the purpose of moving the story along; some are left out altogether. But an adaptation is supposed to take liberties, right? We know the story of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE; we've read the book, we've seen the BBC adaptation (which was very faithful to the novel); in my opinion, it's about time we got a fresh take on Austen's timeless classic.
And Wright does a brilliant job with this adaptation. This version lacks the romanticized costuming and setting of the BBC film, which felt and looked like a period piece. The presentation of this version is much more gritty, much more natural; the gowns are plain, the country is muddy and rainy. The love between Elizabeth and Darcy is innocent, vibrant, making them even more unbalanced, and they are even more powerless to resist each other. The music is understated and simple, the perfect compliment to a story of overwhelming, irresistable love.
And the acting is absolutely superb. Keira Knightley is a natural actress, surprisingly powerful in her portrayal of strong-willed Elizabeth Bennet. I was a little bit concerned she'd be too young for the role (and too beautiful to play Elizabeth)--but she blew me away with her forceful performance. It's no wonder she was nominated for an Oscar for this role! And Matthew Macfayden--although Colin Firth he is not, but who is?--is brilliant as the haughty, decorous, discreet Mr. Darcy. And the two have tons of chemistry. Dame Judi Dench and Donald Sutherland are welcome additions to the cast in small but memorable roles.
There are two scenes, in particular, that I thought were particularly well done. The scene in which Elizabeth visits Pemberley and wanders around Darcy's home, touching his sculptures and admiring his beautiful belongings, is particularly telling. You can feel Elizabeth's feelings evolving at that moment, and the score is particularly well-utilized in this scene. The other scene is the one in the moor, early in the morning, when Darcy comes to Elizabeth out of the mist. Sounds corny, but it's simply beautiful: The two young actors convey so much, without really saying anything at all. The fabricated ending is sweet and lovely, too.
One thing Wright doesn't change about Austen's story is the main message her long-ago novel contained, a message that is still pertinent today: True love transcends all boundaries of class and pride. So I have to say my trepidation was groundless. All in all, this version of PRIDE & PREJUDICE is a worthy update to Austen's timeless romance. The only thing I really missed was Colin Firth in the wet white shirt--but we can't always have it all, can we?
Movie Review: "Sometimes the last person on earth you want to be with is the one person you can't be without."
Summary: 5 Stars
Over the years Hollywood has produced innumerable romantic comedies in which two people, obviously attracted to (and perfect for) one another, are kept apart by circumstances for a couple of hours until the artificial barriers between them are torn down and they wind up in each other's arms. Most of them have been terrible, but British director Joe Wright's new version of the Jane Austen tale which is the granddaddy of them all proves that if you only return to the source, and treat it if not with absolute fidelity at least with respect, the experience can be delightful. This is a lively, colorful, intelligent retelling of the template for all the later books and movies about two people obviously destined to be together who remain apart all too long due to misunderstandings and the machinations of others. Its sensibility is more modern than Austen's, of course, but that doesn't mean it's any less enjoyable on its own.
At just a bit over two hours, this "Pride and Prejudice" can't include as much of the detail of Austen's original as the well-regarded five-hour BBC mini-series of 1995, which starred Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. But in Deborah Moggach's skillful adaptation it contains enough to convey the flavor of the book, as well as the basic plot, very successfully, though the tone is more overtly romantic; in this respect it's certainly the equal of the famous 1940 film with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. And Wright proves remarkably adept at infusing the action not only with the serenity and charm it needs, but with lightness and vivacity as well, an effect achieved especially by his penchant for fast-moving tracking shots, beautifully managed by cinematographer Roman Osin. Osin's luscious widescreen images have the benefit of focusing on lovely locations and utterly convincing period accouterments; the production design by Sarah Greenwood, art direction by Ian Baille, Mark Swain and Nick Gottschalk, set decoration by Katie Spencer and costumes by Jacqueline Durran are all superb. One could spend one's time just luxuriating in the visual splendor on the screen, made even happier by Dario Marianelli's pleasantly evocative score.
But the meat of the story is in the characters, of course, and here too the film proves outstanding. Keira Knightley makes ample amends for her dreadful performance in "Domino" by portraying the strong-willed, level-headed Elizabeth Bennet as a young woman of both (dare one say it) spunk and an undercurrent of melancholy. Matthew Macfadyen, happily not a conventionally handsome sort, matches her by capturing Darcy's aristocratic demeanor and his inner conflict nicely. Together they make a couple that emphasizes the youthfulness and relative inexperience of Austen's creations far more than was the case in any of the previous filmizations--which makes the tale not only more credible but somehow more poignant. Their excellence doesn't stand alone; the supporting cast is superb, too, with Donald Sutherland wonderfully unruffled and sardonic as the put-upon Mr. Bennet and Brenda Blethyn keeping his wife--an unsophisticated woman obsessed with finding husbands for her many daughters, and a character that can easily become an irritation--within bounds. Rosamund Pike and Simon Woods make an appealing pair as the secondary couple in the mix, Elizabeth's easily-hurt elder sister Jane and Darcy's more ebullient friend Bingley, and Jena Malone is suitably flighty as the immature Lydia, whose infatuation with the handsome but unreliable Wickham (an appropriately smooth Rupert Friend) causes not only a Bennet family crisis but an opportunity that in time will lead to the resolution of the Elizabeth-Darcy impasse. If one can raise any qualifications about the casting, they'd have to concern Tom Hollander, who gives the stiff, obsequious Collins more of a conventionally comic tone than some might wish, and Judi Dench, whose Lady de Bourgh might seem too much the usual intrusive cameo (and whose final scene isn't ideally staged). But you easily become acclimated to them, and in the end they fit Wright's conception.
In fact, when looked at as a whole, there's something just a bit miraculous about how enjoyable Wright's film is. "Pride and Prejudice" may be the same old story about finding Mr. Right, but this movie shows that if your take on the familiar tale is sufficiently deft, it can be as fresh and enchanting as Austen's book itself must have been in 1813.
Movie Review: Enjoyable but flawed
Summary: 5 Stars
First of all, I enjoyed this version; I really did. What it got right is a more distinct sense of the darker and chaotic side of Jane Austen's worlds. There's a lot of melancholy here, which wasn't rendered in the preceding TV series. The Brits--though this time contaminated by French input, which didn't help at all; it seldom does-can do Austen very well indeed when they put their midns to it. The BBC version of Emma with Kate Beckinsale was so much superior to the boring Paltrow cinema version.
Where does this latest production of P&P fail?
The first problem coming to mind is the script. Adaptation is an art all of its own, and while the TV series had time to plot out most of the significant narrative strands of the novel, two hours of film doesn't. Purely from a scripting point of view, significant characterizations--'significant' in the sense that they contributed to the explication and bringing-to-live of the central characters--were far too 'pro forma', almost as if they were thrown in because the writer felt that they needed to. The result was that many of them had no function at all, and cluttered up the action and diffused the narrative focus.
The second problem had to do with direction. The first half, with the aid of the muddled script, was confusing, unconvincing and occasionally annoying. I loved the deconstruction of the decorous superficiality that adhered to the TV series, and the occasionally chaotic social occasions; but in the end it got too much, and the interactions of the main characters were lost, instead of, as the director presumably intended, contextualized. Also, the sound was awful. The deliberate toning-down and made-hard-to-hear-above-the-din of individual conversations may have had an element of realism, but the strain of the listener, having to work out just exactly what was being said, didn't help one's becoming engrossed in the tale. The vacuous sisters and mother and their hysterical carry-ons also became annoying and were overdone and for too long.
Third problem: Keira Knightley. She's a cool actress, who fits perfectly into King Arthur, Pirates of the Caribbean, Love Actually--but here she was very much miscast. If the producers had had any guts they would have cast the incomparable Rosamund Pike in that role, instead of wasting her in the nearly-invisible part of Jane Bennett. Rosamund was the saving grace among the women of Die Another Day, and here, too, she basically stole the show without even trying hard whenever she appeared, whether she said or did much or, as was the case for the most time, not. Keira, by contrast, needs to act-by-effort since she doesn't as yet have enough depth of personality. Too much 'star' and not enough 'character'; quite unsuitable for this part. She battled her way through it valiantly, and I admire her for that, but it just wasn't 'right' for her. The mis-casting was rivaled only by the casting of Katie Holmes in Batman Begins.
Fourth problem: just about all the male characters, except for Donald Sutherland, who can do no wrong. That the film should fade out with a shot of him was an unexpected stroke of genius. I wonder if it was scripted that way or a directorial decision. (I never saw the alternate ending, which I probably would have loathed; so let's go with this one and pretend that the other never was).
Having said all these basically negative things, I'd like to finish on a positive note, which is that in the second half, when the 'busy-ness' started to abate, the film actually acquired depth and became quite touching. The final scene between Elizabeth and her father was the crown, and if an ending is what makes a movie, it makes me forgive many other mistakes.
But just imagine if, instead of Keira Knightley it had Rosamunde Pike who had been doing that scene with Sutherland. It would have been near-perfection.
It was meant to be FOUR stars (I entered five by mistake!) and that solely because of the second half and a great attempt to take the saccharine edge off the movie-incarnations of Austen's novels.
Till Noever, owlglass.com, Author: KEAEN, CONTINUITY SLIP, SELADIENNA
Movie Review: Wordgasms ensue
Summary: 5 Stars
How would the teens of Dawson's Creek or the recent Juno speak like if they were English in the year 1797? Look no further than Pride and Prejudice, one of the greatest love stories ever told and the original template for essentially every modern chick-flick or romantic comedy to come henceforth.
At first I thought the movie was rather talky and somewhat boring, but the more i watched and the more I paid attention, I started to realize that this is one of the most engaging and accurately lavish English period pieces I have ever seen before.
But it is not for everyone. Certainly notsomuch as Atonement is for more general audiences or more easily digestible. This film requires a more expert level of movie watching/comprehension and a certain degree of literary aptitude. It begs for, nay demands the viewers active participation, involvement, and a certain commitment of attention more novice pieces would dare not request. And by literary aptitude I don't necessarily mean the source novel as much as I mean Shakespeare. The characters relate and converse in a pseudo-Shakespearean manner minus the iambic pentameter. If you cannot keep up with all of the double entendras, doublespeak, subliminal messages and the like you will likely have a difficult time appreciating the genius of this screenplay written by Deborah Moggach.
The complicated relationships and plot are also like a Shakespearan comedy (all though at times feels like a tragedy) and it is very easy to get left behind if you are not of to task. This is why I enjoyed the movie so much. You need to pay full attention to fully appreciate this work of art. Visually there were many hidden cues like actors' not-always-so-obvious facial expressions as well as unspoken hints from the brilliant, however also purposeful wardrobe and costume design. It's very difficult to explain in a simple way, but I simply love this director's work; Joe Wright is stupid genius!
What a guilty pleasure for a moviephille for me to watch.
And let us not even mention the name Keira Knightley. This is the film that finally put her on the map as a serious actress to be reckoned with and not just another pretty face. She thoroughly shines throughout as the star and primary protagonist of the movie.
Director Joe Wright's second motion picture 'Atonement' was extrmely good, a modern classic in its own right, but it was not exactly a happy story. It did not make me smile inside as the subtle and not-so-subtle humor like P&P did. This one was more a romp that leaves one giddy so giddyup!
note: This was my first treatment of P&P. I never saw any other version or read the book, but now I have decided to gobble up all of Jane Austen's other famous works and find myself feverishly awaiting Joe Wright's forthcoming film 'The Soloist'
My Addendum:
I have been perusing the 1 star reviews that are speckeled among the many praising and applauding reviews of this movie and I just wanted to say something to address those naysayers. First of all, I think you all have lost much prospective and are waging your 1 star rating for hyperbolic effect. And second, if all of you who loathed this adaptation were in charge of all other adaptations in Hollywood, movies would just plain suck and not really be viable or marketable at all. Thank goodness this is not the state of things. It is more palatable movies such as this that satisfy the masses that draw in new viewers to your precious A&E/BBC version or bring in new readers to the original novel. Is that such a horrible thing? I swear so many rabid Austen fans think P&P was written only for them and belongs to them and if it isn't the approved 1995 edition of the miniseries, well then thee be damned. Chill out already and stop trying to ruin it for the rest of us. You should all be thanking the director Joe Wright because thanks to him (eventually) more people in the world will get to know who the heck Colin Firth even is!
Movie Review: Perfection...
Summary: 5 Stars
I must confess that I have not yet read the book, but watching this movie has persuaded me to.
Though some do not approve of this film version of the novel, I have to say that I understand them. I am not fond of period movies, so the idea of watching this film was far from my thoughts. One boring afternoon, with nothing else to do, I decided to view the film. I did not pay attention at first, but little by little, I began watching it. By the end, I was crying because of the last scene.
(Note: There are two endings to this film. The US version has Lizzie and Darcy kissing. The UK version ends with the intimate moment with Lizzie and her father. I cried at the UK ending.)
A few days later, I decided to watch the movie once more. This time, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. So far, I've viewed the film 5 times and counting.
It is a masterpiece on its own. With its spectacular scenery, Colorful imagery, and moving score, one has to view this film more than twice to fully enjoy what this movie really has to offer. As I watched the film, I felt as if I was reading a piece of literature: fluid in motion as if from your own imagination.
The symbolisms in this film are abundant (Take note: The film aims to depict the film as if from the POV of Lizzie. Notice the constant shoot where we are able to see what Lizzie sees, like viewing herself in the mirror or viewing Lydia's departure from the window.) Whats more is the set designers characterization of the settings to complement the characters living in them (Example: The Bennet house possessed vibrant colors similar to the Bennet family. Darcy's home gives a mysterious, great but modest grandeur similar to Darcy himself.) Then the Music... OH MY... the music is heavenly! Enough said.
The story flows quick and well. It does not drag in certain parts, allows full coverage of the main story without making the film too long.
I have viewed the BBC 1995 TV series of the novel upon recommendation my many. For me, I did enjoy the TV version seeing as it seemed appropriate for television. But to be honest, I prefer this version better. One notable thing about this version is that you don't go hating any of the dislikable characters like Mrs Bennet, Mr Collins, etc. The film gives them depth and so in the end, instead of hating them totally, you tend to understand them.
The well-rounded characters, the breath-taking scenery, the emotionally moving score, and the vibrant colors of the imagery makes this film a work of art.
To add to this: as a guy, I did not expect to appreciate the intensity of the crucial romantic scenes, but I did. It surprised me but I was actually able to relate to Mr Darcy's character during those moments. I felt the moment.
The humor of the film is also something to behold. It takes careful attention in order to catch many of its humor (Such as Ms Bingley's line "For God's sake, Are we to receive every Bennet in the county?!" or Lizzie's reaction as she enters the room after reading Jane's letter about Kitty) Some jokes are not so obvious at first, but when you understand the situation, you laugh so hard. It's very witty and sarcastic.
The Acting... Keira being nominated for BEST ACTRESS at the Oscars says enough. Matthew is a great actor (Why wasn't he nominated?!). I've seen some of his work and I dare say that this is best work (For me that is). Playing a grown man who falls in love like a little boy is not an easy thing to do.
For those who dislike this film, may I ask you to take another look. For those who liked it, view it again so you would love it more.
As my Literature teacher once said "A good piece of literature is one which you have to read or view more than once in order to enjoy the various layers of the work". This is what this version offers.