Like Darcy: a rough-edged movie to love forever

Rating: 10/10 (29 May 2006)

First things first. Keira Knightly is brilliant. She is in almost every scene, not always at the center of the scene, sometimes as part of a crowd, but she lights up every scene she is in. She is beautiful and winning, and in-turn fun-loving, sarcastic, giggly, confrontational, concerned -a virtuoso performance. The character of Elizabeth is a role to die for, and Knightly knows it - but she steps up to it and becomes the definitive Elizabeth for a generation of movie-goers.
The Bennett family comes across as a real family - the interactions between the daughters is rarely the focus of the action, but its always present and creates a believable context for the story.
And the movie is beautiful -from its rural scenes to its manors to its landscapes, it lavishly, almost indulgently, shows a place and a time.
And the camera-work! Watch as the action at a party proceeds without any cuts - the camera backs out of a room follows other action, enters another room. Its not only breath-taking (was anyone else reminded of Hitchcock and Rope?) but it pulls the audience into the scenes, shows the physical size and layouts of the rooms, and the relational frenzy of the party.
But the bottom line for me was that this Pride and Prejudice has great emotional power -while maintaining all the various plot threads of the book. I loved it. Loved it. Loved it. (And I'm a guy!)
Rough edges. Yes, there were some. At the end of the movie Elizabeth uses the phrase "Incandescently in love" - in an age before electric lights, I doubt this word was well-known or used in this way. And several scenes struck me as wrong: the dance at the stately ball was too crowded and low-class. But these are nits. This movie is like Fitzwilliams Darcy - its beautiful at its core and worth loving forever.