Disappointing. A poor imitation of the BBC production.

Rating: 1/10 (13 February 2006)

I'm afraid that I'm going to be a lone, controversial voice about this movie! Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I was disappointed in this movie. The BBC production with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle was just so perfect and true to the book; anything that followed was bound to disappoint me. I never really felt drawn into the movie until the last scene with Mr Bennet & Elizabeth after Mr Darcy had asked for her hand.
If I have to pinpoint what I felt was dramatically wrong with it I'd suggest three main causes : firstly, there was an imbalance. Some scenes, such as the dancing scenes were drawn out, while other - more important scenes - such as the one where Charlotte Lucas told Elizabeth she was marrying freaky Mr Collins, were truncated to a few lines.
Secondly, I felt the director/producer should have taken a bigger risk in allowing the actors to give more original interpretations of the characters. To me - and having watched the BBC production 6 times! - the actors played the characters almost identically (I'm thinking particularly of Mrs Bennet, Mr Bingley & Mr Collins) to the BBC production and ended up coming across as inept shadows of their thespian predecessors.
Finally, and this was perhaps the biggest flaw, it ended up being a commercialized historical version of a bubblegum romance the likes of "Sleepless in Seattle", rather than a serious literary movie. The director/producer relies on, for example, photographic long shots of the misty moors, and the floating dust sheets being thrown at Netherfield, etc and weak humor (Mr Bingley pacing before asking Jane to marry him (and then using that awfully colloquial "I was an unmitigated ass..."); Mr Darcy pacing while Elizabeth was in with Mr Bennet; Elizabeth pacing when she read about Lydia's elopement, to bring in the audience, rather then real characterization and deep emotion to capture the viewers. How this movie got nominated for 4 Oscars, including best actress, I have no idea!!!