however, there are many times when we are forced to eat our words, and this is such a time. after renting the movie for my sister, who was desirous to view it as she has no taste, i found i was in possession of a similar desire to watch this piece of cinematic tripe. i'll still hate it, i argued (convincingly) to myself, it's just so much better when you're able to give concrete examples for passionately hating something. so i sat down and watched.
here's the thing: for me, as for so many others, jennifer ehle is and always will be elizabeth bennet. and it quite goes without saying that colin firth is mr. "no thank you, i don't want a chair, i'd much prefer to stand and stare at miss elizabeth from this corner" darcy now and forever. matthew mcwhatever? *snerk* puh-leeze.
ok, good points first. gorgeous cinematography. this is the one failing of the 1995 miniseries, as the beeb were working on a large production with far-from-limitless funds at their disposal. in the new version, the location shots in particular were fantastic. even if i hated what was going on during a particular scene, the scenery would make me go, "ooooh." i have no idea what they did or how they did it, but the colors throughout the film did an excellent job of adding to the mood. the music was also excellent. not trying to say that carl davies' score for the 1995 version was bad or anything, cos it rocked, but that little piano thing in the new version really captured a lot.
i felt the characterization was slightly lacking. keira knightley spent most of the movie looking peaky underneath her (too) dark brown hair, and i never felt all that much sympathy for her. darcy mark two was played up as too much of a romantic hero, and we never got to see him be as much of a prig as he was meant to. he changes, he becomes a better person because of his love for lizzy's "inquiring mind." we can't sympathize with him from the beginning. there's a reason lizzy hated him at first, and it's because he was being an unpleasant snob.
all that aside, although it may have been because it was very late, but i was very nearly enjoying the movie (despite all the liberties taken with the plot) until the last scene. we see elizabeth and darcy at pemberley, happily married. here is where is largest departure is taken from the plot, and with the least success. i'm guessing the movie dudes thought that people needed some more closure, an unequivocally unequivocal happy ending. never mind that jane austen wrote a particularly good one; some people just can't be bothered to use their imaginations. it's really not necessary to see darcy and elizabeth in wedded bliss-we know that they will live happily ever after, and to actually have to witness part of it is stupid and wrong and made me lose interest.
now, i understand that turning a book, any book (besides the kind with only pictures), into a two-and-a-half-hour film is difficult. minor characters get cut, dialogue is reduced, etc. but my main beef with this newest adaptation of "pride and prejudice" is this: THEY TURNED IT INTO A CHICK FLICK. "what's this?!" i hear you cry in dismay. "but surely it was one already!" and my answer to you is, yes and no. yes, the story centers around the romance between elizabeth and darcy. but that's not all the book is about. it's so much more than that. jane austen didn't just write milquetoast romances set in Regency-era England, she wrote satiricial social commentary. the superficiality of Society, the Marriage Mart, young women with 'accomplishments' instead of real educations, the gaping difference between those with money and those without, and so on. why do you think that the book is still so popular all these years later? no romance, however beautifully imagined or perfectly written, is able to last without possessing some substance in addition to its sentimentality. why is it that today, you can walk into any bookstore and see sequels to it that others have penned, myriad books inspired by "pride and prejudice" ? people can't get enough of it. it is a book that stays with one, and it deserves much more than a chick flick in humble homage, no matter how pretty it may be or how many big-name actors appear in it. and so i will close with the opening sentence of "pride and prejudice," a sentence that was not seen fit to be included in the new movie:
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
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