Oh, Botha!

Rating: 5/10 (9 December 2005)

Okay, I recognize that what follows is not so much a critique of this movie as it is a critique of this genre, and that as period costume dramas about the trials and tribulations of people who sit on windowsills staring pensively into the distance go, this one is decidedly above-average. Good costumes, some fine acting (especially from Donald Sutherland as the weary-eyed father), nice set design etc., etc.
But, what I can't help wondering is this: What, exactly, is the appeal of movies like this? Why are we supposed to care about the outcome? What are the stakes?
In all of Pride & Prejudice, we do not see a single person doing actual work, except perhaps for the men in white wigs whose job it is to pull out and push in the chairs so that the various noble diners do not have to be troubled with such annoyances. The parents of Elizabeth, Austen's purportedly feminist heroine, are the "poor folks" in the story, desperate to marry off their five daughters so that they are not left to a life of--what? Sitting around staring pensively out of small windows, rather than large ones?
At its core, Pride & Prejudice is supposedly the story of a headstrong young woman who refuses to bow to the demands and pressures of anyone, who speaks her mind despite societal pressures that insist she be silent and subservient. But in the end, what does Elizabeth do? (I suppose I should issue a spoiler warning here for anyone who hasn't read the book and/or seen one of the eleven-thousand film and television adaptations) She marries the man we all knew she was going to marry from the start, presumably to go off and live in his big house to sit on his big windowsill and--well, you can probably guess the rest. Here's a hint: it'll involve staring and being pensive.
I realize that as a young male I am not the target demographic of this movie and others like it. Yet I consider myself reasonably open-minded, both cinematically and otherwise. My idea of a good movie does not necessarily involve explosions and copious nudity, those these things never hurt.
No, what I can't abide by is a story about stiff people who speak stiffly, do very little and end up virtually where they started, with the only real question being what gown and corset combination they'll put on next. Much more effective, I think, would be a story about the working class during the era in which Austen focused her novels--the blacksmiths and the shoemakers and the farmers, those people who knew what it meant to get dirty and sweaty and bloody and speak their minds, and who were too busy living to stare pensively off into the distance.