The realism was unauthentic.

Rating: 6/10 (12 November 2005)

I felt distracted by the 'realism' of the film. Jane Austen would not have gone into detail about the 'farm' (chickens, hogs, etc.) portrayed in the film. Jane Austen's world was a gentle one and the Bennets, despite their pretensions, were middle class. The television series got it right. This film did not. The new film deviated too far from the book and the author's intent in dealing with the manners of the aspiring middle class in the early nineteenth century. Although the costumes appeared to be authentic, the makeup was too heavy; the eyebrows on the women too sculptured and the men's beard too unshaven, as are characteristic in 2005. One good feature was the variety of clothing styles form the current (early 1800s) to the outdated of Judi Dench and Donald Sutherland. I remember David Maclean saying about the film Dr. Zhivago that they forgot about the hairstyles. Here they forgot about the makeup.