Pride and Prejudice

I approached this film from the position of having recently re-read the book and never having properly watched the BBC series (although I do know what Colin Firth looks like!)

I enjoyed watching this film – primarily because the central love story was really quite breathtaking. The magnetism and chemistry between the two actors – and therefore the two characters – was obvious.

Matthew Macfadyen glowered and brooded in just the right way. Mr Darcy secretly struggles with his attraction to Elizabeth from quite early on and this comes across well. He’s not really horrid enough though – after all, Elizabeth is supposed to detest him and we’re supposed to agree – but then her apparent attraction to him in the film adds to the passion I guess! I didn’t like the way he’d rapidly blurt out the first lines of a conversation because in my mind Mr Darcy is very controlled, but there were points when he was beautifully emotional and vulnerable and it worked. He’s incredibly handsome and I confess that I was rendered weak at the knees by his smouldering stares, and he also has a wonderfully rich voice. *Swoon*

Keira Knightly was really excellent as Elizabeth Bennet, capturing her wit and cheek and lively imagination. I had been worried that she’d be too pretty and too skinny, but the book doesn’t really tell us about her figure and, in contrast to the views of other reviewers, I thought she looked perfectly ‘normal’ enough and Jane could quite easily be considered prettier by the men.

I think the film let itself down by barely scratching the surface of many of the relationships and characters. Mr Collins was appropriately cringeworthy (eeuw!! He was so funny) but we didn’t see the extent of his idiocy and why therefore Elizabeth would be so repulsed by him, and we weren’t shown how horrified Elizabeth was by Charlotte’s degrading herself to marry him. Wickham was far better portrayed in Bride and Prejudice than this film (the script’s fault, not the actor’s) so check that one out to see why Elizabeth would take so much pleasure in his company.

So to summarise: passionate and engaging romance between the two leads, but skimmed quickly through the rest of the main points in the book, without fully being an entity in itself, independent from the book. Much of the time I felt I only had a full understanding of the scene because I had read the book. I don’t mind a film being different to the book, but then it should stand successfully on its own, and this doesn’t, in my opinion.