Period? Period!

Rating: 7/10 (10 May 2006)

In general, this is an enjoyable movie and true to the book (which far outshines any movie made of it - which is why it's still read and enjoyed, and will be for the foreseeable future). Keira Knightley is smart and a delight to watch. But some things kept slapping me in the face, detracting from my experience greatly.
If a director goes about placing a movie in a specified period - as with Austen's works - he or she should take care to be true to the period in all matters, and this is the difficulty I have with the new P&P.
Ladies do not run! It's fine to show Lydia and the little sisters running indoors to show their "wildness", but Lizzie herself does not run - I believe it was at one of the balls. This was not done!
Ladies appear in public with their hair properly dressed! Lizzie would no more appear at Netherfield with her hair hanging loose than she would appear in her nightclothes!
Speaking of nightclothes, ladies do not leave their bedrooms in their nightclothes (except for middle-of-the-night emergencies, as when Marianne is ill in S&S); they do not come down to breakfast in nightgowns, as Lizzie did once (don't remember exact scene). (If this dress was not supposed to be a nightgown, well, then my gripe is with the costume designer.)
Ladies certainly do not sit tailor-fashion, as Lizzie is shown doing in the "Mrs. Darcy" scene at the end. In this era, ladies rode sidesaddle if they rode at all - legs were kept rigorously together!
The director completely missed the restrictions women had on the use of their bodies, certainly up through the Victorian era. Mrs. Bennett neglected many important parts of her daughters' education, but she would have trained her girls to comport themselves properly and behave appropriately. This was a mark of class, and the Bennett girls are a gentleman's daughters (as Lizzie reminds Lady Catherine). Even Ang Lee got this right in Sense and Sensibility (but he also had the superb Emma Thompson to assist him in this).
No, I'm not a member of any Jane Austen society (tho I've considered it), just an ex-English teacher. I like to see the details right, and Joe Wright messed this one up.