Keira Knightley needs some flesh on her bones

Rating: 7/10 (29 December 2005)

This is a pretty decent adaptation, with attractive actors and a script that wisely does not stray far from Jane's classic outline. (Isn't is true though how today the plot seems somewhat clichéd? Now when we have two characters who hate each other at first sight, it's usually pretty much a guarantee that they are going to end up either as best friends or partners for life.) There is plenty of lovely cinematography to keep the viewer satisfied: stately homes that were never statelier. And Dame Judi Dench is every inch a Dame. There are probably more farm animals shown in this P & P than in any prior Austen film: at times I thought I was watching Babe III, but I eventually got used to all the pigs and geese.
I just have two quibbling observations. First, Keira Knightley needs some flesh on her bones if she wants to be taken seriously as an Austen heroine. No early 19th century beauty would have wanted to have looked so thin and hungry: there was not our contemporary obsession with anorexic waifs. Second, the keyboard instrument of Austen's time was a spindly forte-piano, not the loud (and metallic) concert grand that thunders on the soundtrack. It was disconcerting to see Elizabeth Bennett sit at an instrument similar to a harpsichord, and have the sound come out as if it's a Bosendorfer!