Miss Austen's writing deserves an awful lot better than this.

Rating: 2/10 (31 March 2006)

What can I say? It would be tactless, prejudiced and unjust to claim that Hollywood producers can't do justice classic literature. Sadly, the sentiment sometimes crops up, and this movie does not help to disprove it.
Miss Knightley isn't my thing by a far cry, and MacFadyen's idea of playing Darcy seems to consist in trying to say as little as possible and look dark and brooding - at moments I'm getting the impression that he's looking more disorientated/drugged than anything else, but what the heck.
But what really, really gets me is that while dialog and plot are 95% book based, the producers evidently didn't even try to do justice to the English landed gentry of that time. The mistakes are so glaringly obvious that it hurts, be it that Kiera Knightley is running around with her hair open and unkempt (why?? to show off the fake long hair that has been stapled to her neck? Okay, so that was pretty the top level of hair styles occurring in that movie, but still), without a hat, and either giggling or with her mouth half-open - hair splitting? Yes, by 21st century standards it is. But in the 18th century, all of this was either questionable or down-right scandalous behavior for a girl of Elizabeth Bennet's back-ground - and anybody who read Miss Austens books would know that! Same for Mrs Bennet having rough, reddish hands and skin. Same for pigs running into the Bennet's house. Same for Elizabeth running around out of house in nothing but her sleeping wear and a coat/scarf thrown over it.
Repeat: a gentile girl of the 18th century wouldn't do that any more than a high school girl would go shopping in her undies or go to school without having combed her hair or showered for a week. And you don't have to study history to know that, just read 3 books by Jane Austen or other writers of her time, and you'll know it.
Now, all of that could still be the producers not giving a damn. But what really, really gets me is are the fake pseudo-classic statues with the late 20th-century beauty ideal of slim legs and buttocks pasted onto them. For f***s sake, if you can't deal with the fact that 18th century ideas of female beauty differed from those of today, then why make a movie that plays in that period? This has an unpleasant taste of "let's not err one step from main stream movie concepts, because the viewer's won't swallow what they aren't familiar with". I would really, really like to think that US cinema goers aren't as skittish as that. Apart from that, since those scenes have zero meaning for plot or character development and never were even hinted at in the book, I can only assume that their sole purpose was that some men who erred into this movie got to see some naked curves, even if they were marble, not flesh.
As to why I'm making such a fuss about getting the period right (or at least, trying to do so):
(1) the movie is based entirely on the book, and that was written by a woman belonging into this period, to whom the concepts of propriety and style of her time mattered. To milk Jane Austen's work for money and then represent her world in such a shoddy way is bad manners at the least.
(2) there's next to nothing redeeming about the movie: the actors are rattling down their lines as if somebody was standing behind them with a timer and a whip. Jane's most important character traits (grace and goodness of heart) are being stated at best, but apart from that she doesn't come across as anything more than your standard bottle-blond, smiling, pretty face. Mr Collins (like some other actors) seems to be at the point of falling asleep for most of his screen time, and the only two characters who have a bit of charisma to them are the two the audience is expected to dislike: Miss Bingley and Mary Bennet.
All in all? Sporking material at best. If you are after a nice, bland romance and don't mind getting a willfully warped image of English society, have at it. If you're looking for a decent representation of the book, avoid this one at all cost.