The Keira Knightley Show

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 2006)

Keira Knightley carries this movie with an outstanding performance as Elizabeth Bennet. A great accomplishment considering her very young age and the historical weight of this role; she doesn't flinch. She shows range and maturity way beyond her years and has a great future as I consider her one of the best actresses working today. Hopefully she doesn't get involved with the Hollywood partying nonsense (Lindsay Lohan etc.) and continues to take challenging roles.
It took me at least 20 minutes or so to get used to this movie, there was a lot of giggling going on by the girls in the beginning that was a little off putting and it was hard to follow what was going on as I had no exposure to Pride and Prejudice in any form beforehand. So much of Austen's novel was crammed into 2 hours that for noobs like me it may be hard to decipher the nuances of who's marrying who and why. Actually, when I watched this a second time I enjoyed it a lot more.
After seeing this I watched some of the 6 hour miniseries but I like this version better. The acting and dialogue here was more natural and the cinematography was superior. Not to say the mini isn't good, it's just very different. I prefer this version.
All the other actors involved are excellent, including Rosamund Pike as Jane Bennet, Donald Sutherland as the father, and Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy, although his performance while very good may have been a tad bit understated.
Director Joe Wright should be commended for generating considerable tension from what is really a simple story, **spoilers ahead** even though you know that Elizabeth and Darcy are going to eventually get together. And when they do, it such a relief!
In closing I have to mention again how great Keira Knightley is in this movie, and I can't believe others would call her performance "awful". That's just silly come on. She steals every scene she's in, and she's in every scene!