A fantastic movie- and that's what it is, a movie, not a book or miniseries

Rating: 10/10 (28 January 2006)

People, please, quit sniping about how this movie isn't "true enough" to the book or doesn't match up to the miniseries.
I'm certainly an admirer of the miniseries, but a film that has six hours to tell a story isn't going to be the same thing as a two-hour film. As for the book, never read it, but I also think that a movie has absolutely no obligation to be loyal to source material, only to be as strong a movie as it can be.
Is this movie overly romantic and passionate when compared to the book? Perhaps. But as a romantic film, it is superb. Knightley is mesmerizing on screen. Not just her beauty, but the life she brings to the whole movie. I do hope she receives an Oscar nomination. The supporting players are all fantastic, particularly Sutherland, whose final scene with Knightley is as warm and happy a scene as I can think of in a while, invoking for me a similar scene with Denholm Elliot and Helena Bonham-Carter scene near the end of "A Room With a View". The whole movie is about happiness, and the happiness of its characters. Its goal is to make you care about them and their happiness, and by the end, it's as warm and joyful a movie as you'll see this year.
Does it please Austen-ites? It doesn't matter, if their judgment is by how loyal it is to the book. It's just a plain great movie.