A Chicken Soup Kind of Movie

Rating: 7/10 (11 December 2019)

The best way I can describe this movie is that it's like chicken soup: it's warm and cozy on a cold day, but it doesn't really have that much lasting substance on it's own. Don't get me wrong--I love Jane Austin as much as the next person, and by all means, this -is- a good movie. I just don't like it very much. And after viewing it three times, I think I can finally explain why.
Before I begin, Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austin's most famous work, and for good reason. It's witty, it's analytical, it's thoughtful... I could go on. So it was inevitable for Hollywood to make an adaptation like this. Make no mistake; my review is solely based on this -particular- adaptation, and not Pride and Prejudice itself.
Now, I think what rubs me the wrong way the most about this movie, is that it's too pretty. Yes, that may seem a bit odd, for a movie that has Lizzie tromping through a field with her dress stained with mud, but I stand by what I said. My problem isn't what's on the screen, but how it's shot. It keeps trying to be most beautiful, profound movie ever, when really...it's not. It comes across as hollow at times, and borderline pretentious. It just screams "give me an Oscar, give me an Oscar!" which it did go on to win. But I feel like it won those Oscars for the wrong reasons.
One of my biggest complaints is Keira Knightly as Elizabeth. She does a good job, but I just can't get behind this casting choice. Keira Knightly is not the right actress for Elizabeth. She just has the wrong temperament.
The best way I can describe it is like this... The character of Elizabeth Bennett is like a goose. Sure, she may be more elegant than nattering ducks like her mother and two sisters, but she's still kind of awkward, pushy, and not afraid to speak her mind. Her defining feature is -not- charm and poise, but rather her quick wit and sharp tongue. That's the reason Mr. Darcy falls in love with her to begin with--because she's the only woman he's ever met, who doesn't suck up to him.
By contrast, Keira Knightly is like a swan. She glides from scene to scene, looking elegant and graceful with every word she says. She does a great job as an actress, but her temperament is all wrong. She's just too beautiful, too calm, and too poised to play the part of loud-mouthed, pushy Elizabeth Bennett.
And while I'm at it, Matthew Macfadyen isn't the right fit for Mr. Darcy either, and for the same reason. He feels like he walked out of a boy band instead of being bred and manicured for high aristocracy. Just sayin'.
I could go on to talk about how the cinematography in this film is trying waaaayyy too hard to be artsy and meaningful, but I won't bother. Because at the end of the day, the fundamental problem with this movie isn't that Keira Knightly played Elizabeth, or the overuse of experimental cinematography, no. The REAL problem with this movie is that it isn't trying to be Pride and Prejudice, so much as it's trying to be Sense and Sensibility 2. This movie wasn't made by someone who loved Pride and Prejudice. This movie was made because some Hollywood executive saw how successful Sense and Sensibility was in 1995, and they wanted to make another one. THAT'S the problem with this movie. Simply put, it just lacks passion. REAL passion. It tries to imitate passion by being grand and sweeping, but the heart isn't there.
That being said, I'm sure a lot of people worked really hard on this film, and they have nothing to apologize for. It also has captured the heart of my dad, and I did watch it three times. It -is- a good movie. It's just not a -great- movie. If you like it, you like it; if you don't then you don't. Watch it if you're a fan of Austin, or if you're sick and just want to curl up on the couch for a couple hours. That's what I did.