Dull and dullerer

Rating: 5/10 (19 November 2005)

A bit like a more intelligent Lost in Translation, the best of both films consisting of the photogenic qualities of its female stars. Once Keira Knightley stopped crinkling her nose and impersonating a Yorkshire terrier, her attractiveness almost carried the film. Unlike Lost in Translation, whose only other redeeming feature was the Tokyo background, Pride and Prejudice failed to make anything of the glorious Derbyshire landscapes on offer, apart from one shot of Miss Knightley apparently auditioning for Wuthering Heights, superfluous, but at least it was pretty. Unless I watched a flawed print, the overall dullness of the movie seemed deliberately perverse. All I could think was that the £20M budget meant they couldn't afford to hang around for a spot of sunshine - particularly criminal during the brief scenes shot at Chatsworth, which barely hinted at what a stunning location this is. Scorn Hollywood as much as you like, but no director of a second rate TV movie would have wasted such an opportunity.
Finally, the ending. I haven't seen the US version, but it could hardly compete with the UK release for banal anti-climax. Much as I love Donald Sutherland, to end with him, and not the lovers (I use the term reluctantly, because any chemistry built up in the first hour, was dissipated in the rush towards the 'climax') was a patronising and failed attempt to genuflect to the novel and its millions of fans.