The Movie Version

Rating: 10/10 (12 April 2006)

Whenever there is a version of a novel that has come to be accepted as the definitive one, making a new one brings the usual baggage as to "will it live up to the expectations" or "will the lead actors symbolize the characters in the book", among other "will there-won't there" questions and people will make the inevitable comparisons, if at all for the sake of the comparison itself.
On having read Jane Austen's novel repeatedly since 1985 and knowing it by heart, and not having seen the miniseries starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle (and half of England's top actors), I was open to this interpretation, knowing it would be much shorter and that there would be the inevitable excising of plot elements in order to maintain interest in the principal story.
The story is exactly the same. The Bennets learn that Netherfield is to be let at last to an eligible bachelor, and all five daughters rejoice at the thought of meeting such a single bachelor. Having no sons, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have nothing to offer their daughters except an uncertain future, and at a time when women were not professionals and were married off in a hurry before they were even 20, security does become the principal issue not just within the Bennets but the Lucases.
But this is a story of romantic suspense in the classical form. The meeting of two people who whether they admit it or not, are very similar to each other, who due to circumstances look at these social gatherings with a turned-up nose, who due to misunderstandings and not really knowing each other come to repel each other while thinking about each other at every passing moment: such is the thing of romantic suspense at its purest. Austen, whether she was aware of structure or not (and I have reason to believe she did), knew she had to place the moment of crisis exactly in the middle of the novel, and in the film it occurs just a little past mid-point. Joe Wright brings a more turbulent feel to PRIDE & PREJUDICE -- many have said it's a blend between Austen's novel and Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" but I think not. Only because Darcy and Elizabeth's scenes are taken out of their tidy settings and out into the open where mist and rain are ever present, and in one scene Darcy is seen riding a horse at full speed ahead, does not constitute an imitation of Bronte's novel. It would have, however, made for a very boring film to set it perpetually indoors; indeed, Austen has quite a number of external scenes, and even when she rarely mentions the weather (except when Jane Bennet makes her trek to Netherfield and falls ill there) it doesn't mean it doesn't occur.
It's also why the moment of release, when Elizabeth has undergone so dramatic a change, looks best at dawn, with Darcy walking in his nightclothes, all masculine longing, coming for one last time to talk to her even though he knows her answer will be yes. This specific scene would have been awful indoors, and notice Matthew MacFadyen's piercing blue eyes telling -- pouring -- emotions about to be released once Keira Knightley's luminous face faces his, and wordlessly accepts him. Just like in the novel, their declaration of love is one paragraph and as emotional as "Wuthering Heights". When Jane Austen writes, "They walked on without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, to pay attention to any other objects," I imagined this to be pretty much as it occurs in the film. It is one of the most emotional climaxes in the history of romantic dramas and says so much more than the most dizzy, violent depiction of romantic love from writers of her generation.
PRIDE & PREJUDICE should be a staple for writers of romance. In keeping the two leads within touching distance from each other, not quite getting what the other is about, there is a sense of urgency -- we want them to make it into each other's arms, even if it happens in the last page (or the last scene, this being film). This being one of the most well-constructed novels of romance and one who gains more weight with every passing decade, it has also embedded itself into modern culture. It wouldn't be hard to find references of this type of story in SEX AND THE CITY, for example, in which Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big, two polar opposites, meet, fall for each other, then argue, then get separated, meet again, can't get along, can't understand each other, go on their separate ways until Mr. Big undergoes such a change towards the end of the series run that when he comes for her, we absolutely believe it and want him to rush after her, snatch her up, and bring her back home where she belongs.
Definitive version? Watch for yourself. But it's always best to read and enjoy the language, the texture, the characters, the urgency of the Bennet's situation, laughing at even the ridiculous characters, cheering when the deeper plots get resolved down to its epilogue when even Lady Catherine de Bourgh -- a relatively powerless dowager -- has to relent to her nephew's wife. Boy meets girl, loses girl, wins girl back has never looked so well as it does here.