So-so movie though would have failed without Hugh Grant

Rating: 6/10 (20 January 2010)

This is entertaining enough to watch once and perhaps even twice - because Hugh Grant is so good in it.]
Anything Hugh Grant is in is worth watching in my experience, whether he's sending himself up farcically, which he does so well, or acting a serious part as in The Man who went up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain. HG is a real charmer. Even playing the caddish Wickham part in this Jane Austen sort of take-off, Grant manages to make Wickham likable in spite of being equally caddish!
I used to read the original B.Jones column in the Independent. It was fairly entertaining although eventually I got tired of her endless problems and moans and stopped reading it - it went way past its sell-by date, I felt. The movie isn't nearly as good as the column, mainly because Zellwegger is so badly miscast althuogh the actress clearly does do her very best. I just can't imagine Bridget Jones like Zellweger, nor does she as scriped and acted have the slightest connection that I can see to sparky, clever Elizabeth Bennet.
The original idea of having Mr Darcy and Wickham in the story was always amusing. If you can be tolerant of a very weak Mr Darcy and a completely non-Elizabeth, you may well love this movie.
6 stars mostly for Hugh Grant. Without him, it would have been only stars. The movie might have worked better for me if Zellwegger had been Elizabeth Bennet's silly younger sister Lydia and ended up enforcedly with a resentful Wickham! Hugh Grant could have done a great line in greed!