Pride and Prejudice
Sep. 24th, 2005 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaI went to see it yesterday, and overall I enjoyed it. Nothing can beat the Beeb's mini-series of 10 years ago, of course - not for the detail, and not for Colin Firth. But the film stands well against it.
I liked that the characters were played by actors of the right age - much as I love the mini-series, a lot of the characters look a lot older than they should, because of the age of the actors. As well as Julia Sawalha performed as Lydia, she was at least 10 years too old for the part, and it showed. Having a 15 year old actress here really hammered home just how young Lydia was to be marrying Wickham.
Didn't think much of this Wickham, but then - we hardly see him in the film, the part is so reduced. He's in about two or three scenes. Necessary perhaps, given the time they had to condense the story into, but a shame because the whole Lizzie-Wickham-Lydia-Darcy stories are so intertwined in the book in a way that came across in the 1995 series but not here. Quite a lot of detail was cut out, maybe necessarily so, but other scenes were added to create a bit more romance, which wasn't strictly necessary because it is such a romantic story anyway. The film comes across as kind of Heathcliff-ish at times - when they have Darcy striding along through the fog I did wonder if we'd somehow slipped into the wrong novel by mistake.
The film feels quite rushed, because there is so much to cram into a relatively short space of time, and quite a lot of details have been changed from the book, plus there will never be a Darcy to match Colin Firth. But Bingley is really cute (shy and awkward rather than bumbling in the mini-series) and I loved the (inserted, non-book) scene where he's practising his proposal with Darcy standing in as Jane! Wouldn't have expected to enjoy an added scene, but I did. It was cute.
Donald Sutherland's accent slips at times, but I liked him here, although he wasn't quite how Jane Austen intended Mr Bennet to be. The Bennet family as a whole in this film come across as a lot more affectionate as a family than in the book, but also seem to have slipped slightly down the social ladder. I suppose they considered that modern audiences wouldn't appreciate the nuances of scale within the gentry, perhaps? Mr Bennet definitely doesn't seem to regret his ill-judged marriage quite so much in the film as he should: the marriage is a lot warmer than Austen wrote it.
Keira Knightly was more animated than I expected - she's often quite one-note, so it was a relief to see that she does more than pout in this film.
My overall feeling was that I enjoyed it. Thumbs up!
I liked that the characters were played by actors of the right age - much as I love the mini-series, a lot of the characters look a lot older than they should, because of the age of the actors. As well as Julia Sawalha performed as Lydia, she was at least 10 years too old for the part, and it showed. Having a 15 year old actress here really hammered home just how young Lydia was to be marrying Wickham.
Didn't think much of this Wickham, but then - we hardly see him in the film, the part is so reduced. He's in about two or three scenes. Necessary perhaps, given the time they had to condense the story into, but a shame because the whole Lizzie-Wickham-Lydia-Darcy stories are so intertwined in the book in a way that came across in the 1995 series but not here. Quite a lot of detail was cut out, maybe necessarily so, but other scenes were added to create a bit more romance, which wasn't strictly necessary because it is such a romantic story anyway. The film comes across as kind of Heathcliff-ish at times - when they have Darcy striding along through the fog I did wonder if we'd somehow slipped into the wrong novel by mistake.
The film feels quite rushed, because there is so much to cram into a relatively short space of time, and quite a lot of details have been changed from the book, plus there will never be a Darcy to match Colin Firth. But Bingley is really cute (shy and awkward rather than bumbling in the mini-series) and I loved the (inserted, non-book) scene where he's practising his proposal with Darcy standing in as Jane! Wouldn't have expected to enjoy an added scene, but I did. It was cute.
Donald Sutherland's accent slips at times, but I liked him here, although he wasn't quite how Jane Austen intended Mr Bennet to be. The Bennet family as a whole in this film come across as a lot more affectionate as a family than in the book, but also seem to have slipped slightly down the social ladder. I suppose they considered that modern audiences wouldn't appreciate the nuances of scale within the gentry, perhaps? Mr Bennet definitely doesn't seem to regret his ill-judged marriage quite so much in the film as he should: the marriage is a lot warmer than Austen wrote it.
Keira Knightly was more animated than I expected - she's often quite one-note, so it was a relief to see that she does more than pout in this film.
My overall feeling was that I enjoyed it. Thumbs up!
