Too much to prove and doesn't quite pull it off

Rating: 4/10 (13 September 2005)

The problem with attempting to produce a film version of this legendary book, just 10 years after the iconic TV series, is that the film must first of all justify its own existence, and then rise above its predecessors in glorious triumph. Sadly, any adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that reduces itself to 2 hours of screening time will never achieve this feat.
Although there were some good performances, and some original takes on the material, director Joe Wright simply shot himself in the foot by his own endeavours. Plastering Kiera Knightley's face on the sides of all the buses in Belfast may be a good ploy to get high box office sales, but you really have to deliver once the tickets are paid for, and sadly this film does not. It is simply too short, and the trailers, which summarise the film in around 30 seconds say it all as to Wright's focus - 'There is one man whom no woman can resist... Mr Darcy!' The film is NOT about Elizabeth Bennet's relationship with Mr Darcy. It is about so much more than that, but the 2 hour time-guillotine means that these extra elements of the Austen's carefully-created society must be cut out, or tailored down to a passing reference, in order to have more time to shoot Elizabeth and/or Darcy brooding over their potential love.
The sequence between their meeting at Pemberley up to Lydia's marriage, which happens in literally a minute, is a case in hand. Both Lydia and Wickham (very freshly portrayed by Jena Malone and Rupert Friend) have so much potential to capitalise on their 1995 predecessors (Julia Sawalaha and Adrian Lukis), but the film simply doesn't give them time to talk, let alone shine, as it races through their scandalous alliance in seconds, without explaining why it is such a shocking event, or how it even came about.
An interesting innovation of the film is its tendency towards realism, seen in the squalor of Bennet living, pigs with large sperm sacs walking through the house, and a refusal to allow caricature in any of the presentations. Whereas this makes Mrs Bennet an altogether more likable and well-rounded character, it means that comedy elements such as Mr Collins (Tom Hollander) and Lady Catherine de Burgh (Judi Dench) are simply flat and lifeless. Austen's original text relies on the non-realistic elements of satire and caricature to carry those parts, and in this production it is missing.
Therefore, the onus is on the leads, Kiera Knightley and Matthew MacFayden, to turn this film from a mediocre remake, into a charming love story. While Knightley is exceptional as Elizabeth Bennet (although supposed attempts to make her unattractive during filming obviously didn't work - an unstraightened fringe is not equivalent to ugliness!), MacFayden fails dismally at his attempts to bring any life or originality into the character of Darcy. He spends most of the first half of the film attempting to look inscrutable but actually looking wet, and the second half of the film attempting to be loving but actually being pathetic. What MacFayden doesn't realise is that Darcy is not Mr nice-but-misunderstood. He IS actually proud and arrogant, and during the course of the plot he MUST go though a reformation. Colin Firth's spectacular 1995 performance managed to epitomise the importance of 'not-acting' a part; Darcy DOES very little, yet the energy needed to play him, and to play everything that is under the surface, is immense. MacFayden merely DOES very little; there is no under-the-surface energy anywhere.
Overall, I think this film was more frustrating than disappointing. Aspects of it, such as the realism of setting, and Knightley's amazing lead performance, made me want to see more of it, although to be honest, I don't think I could endure more than 2 hours of Matthew MacFayden bumbling his way through a botched Mr Darcy attempt. Yes, you've guessed it, I am a Jennifer Ehle/Colin Firth/Jane Austen elitist, but not without justification I hope.