Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Reviewed by Aricson Tarasova
December 25, 2005

Director: Joe Wright Studio: Focus Features Website: www.prideandprejudicemovie.net MPAA: PG for mild thematic elements Review Rating: 9 out of 10

Kiera Knightley plays Elizabeth Bennet; a young upper middle-class English woman whose mother is trying very enthusiastically to marry off as many of her five daughters before their aged father eventually passes away and their estate is inherited off to a distant cousin, the creepy Mr. Collins. This new version of Pride and Prejudice is exploding with wit from the pen of the Great Jane while giving it a new vivacious visual energy. The choice of performances, editing and direction paint a vibrant feast of romance of the early nineteenth century English landed gentry.

Ladies, it's raining (gentle)men! Click on image to enlarge.

Knightley portrays Elizabeth Bennet in a comic blend of fierce silliness and dark sophistication. Knightley's interpretation of Elizabeth smartly bridges the emotional rage of her family; from the maturing despair of her older sister Jane to the darkly sarcastic father and socially withdrawn younger sister Mary to the rampant imprudence of her adolescent siblings Lydia and Kitty (including her “adolescent at heart” mother). The brilliance of this version of Pride and Prejudice is that all the actors do not go over board to caricature, but play Jane Austen's comedic characters within the confines of authentic realism. Knightley's Elizabeth and Brenda Blethyn's performance of Mrs. Bennet are perfect examples of how the film retains Austen's sarcastic comic wit without mocking the characters to buffoonery or two-dimensional romantic heroines.

Pride and Prejudice has a running time of one hundred and twenty-seven minutes, so in order to cover the entire novel some subplots were either dropped or abbreviated. Many of Jane's adventures have been whittled down as voice-overs from letters in order to move the story forward or to set up plot points. My senses were not offended by the editorial compression because the story edits give the film a fun energetic pace.

Director Joe Wright compacts the novel in such a way as to render the overall story with much more vigor than previous retellings. He does this by compressing characterization and the visual language together into each scene. An example of this is the ball at Netherfield, illustrating the Bennets rather shameless display of themselves in one continuous shot. Wright also breathes quiet moments into the film's fast rhythm that also doubles as visual analogies, once again economizing the film's cinematic language.

Moments such as when Elizabeth is swirling around on her swing give the audience time to rest and reflect their own feelings on the powerful romantic conflicts brewing within Pride and Prejudices ' drama while at the same time are simulated by the visual metaphor offered. There is no fat to speak of in the film. Each scene beckons one to want more and the last scene in the film gives an emotional satisfaction like that of finishing an exquisite meal off with a sublime chocolate dessert.

There are very few points of criticism I have of the film. One is that I can't help but compare some elements of this new version of Pride and Prejudice with previous successful versions and the biggest source of comparison is that of Mr. Darcy played by Mathew Macfadyen. Macfadyen does a good job at representing the director's wish for authenticity, but Macfadyen lacks the noble command and total romantic coolness of Colin Firth's portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC/A&E mini-series presentation of Pride and Prejudice.

I do think that if director Joe Wright had needed to render a character to an archetype status it should had been the romantic interest in the film. Many a female fell in love with Firth's Darcy and I don't think Macfadyen's Darcy will have the same amour effect on the fair sex this time around. If Firth had replayed Darcy for this version of Pride and Prejudice, I would probably have given this film a perfect 10 on my rating scale.

I am giving this new version of Pride and Prejudice a High Evolution factor because of the film's overall fun energy. It is my favorite movie of the 2005 holiday films and I'm looking forward to many replays of it on when it comes out on DVD. The film has inspired me to reread the novel again. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that if a good movie inspires one to read then it stands to say that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.