A farmer's daughter to Pemberley: is it Jane Austen or Cinderella!

Rating: 5/10 (3 March 2006)

I must say I am disappointed in all the praise this movie has received as it was one of the worse Pride and Prejudice movies/series I've seen (and I've seen them all!!)
1) Setting: A girl raised in the midst of pigs and chickens rises to Pemberley!! Even Jane Austen wouldn't agree with that. We knew all the time that Elizabeth's family wasn't too well off, but it's supposed to be a gentleman's family, living in decent and respectable elegance (and actually beyond their means). Not inside a farm!!
2) Clothing and general look: Of course family's general look and appearance was also fit for a farmer's family (save for Rosamund Pike), which was extremely contrasting with Darcy and Bingley's entourage's look and appearances. In today's terms this would be like trying to match a cleaning professional with an investment banker (it does happen in movies like Maid in Manhattan, but Jane Austen didn't write a Cinderella story)
3) Keira Knightly: It was a huge disappointment to see Keira whom would physically very much look like an Elizabeth in our imagination, be anything but Elizabeth in this movie. Elizabeth's character is the most crucial foundation of this book and when defining it for a movie, it shouldn't be taken lightly as it was in this case. Where is Jane Austen's lively but digne, daring but not ill-mannered, and extremely sensible Elizabeth, where is this common girl with her vulgar shouting and screaming, misplaced laughing and smiles and her lack of any sensible manners that we witnessed in Keira's Elizabeth.
4) All the other odd bits and pieces: like Lady de Bourg arriving to Elizabeth's home in the middle of the night, Mr Bingley leaving the room without any word and so on
Amongst all this, I found that Darcy was a well defined character by Matthew Macfadyen and so was Jane by Rosamund Pike. If it wasn't for them, I would probably rate the movie 2.
Pity!!