Transcendent Elizabeth and Phlegmatic Darcy

Rating: 7/10 (6 June 2006)

The best Elizabeth I've seen in this role, but the actor playing Darcy was wretched. He substituted mere depression for what Austen depicted: social unease and selectivity. Likewise, Wickham wasn't portrayed as a bounder, rather as a handsome, pleasant fellow who perhaps stretched the truth a little. The costumes and sets were superb, as was the writing. Many of Austen's epigrams remain in the script, but some of the marvelous back stories like Charlotte Lucas's philosophy of marriage in contrast to Elizabeth's don't play out. Compared to Charlotte, Elizabeth seems a romantic in this film, hardly Austen's view.