I feel unbelievably sad and cheated

Rating: 1/10 (29 May 2014)

This movie is a disgrace. To it's producers, to the movie industry and to the world as a whole. Never in my life have I seen a movie that made me want to scream at whatever deity listens for mercy.
Joe Wright, took a masterpiece of British literature and turned it into a cheap Rom com. Now all those men and women who don't know a thing about Jane Austen, have mistakenly associated her work with this God awful movie. That is the reason why I decided to write this review. Dear readers, please, do not watch this movie. Or if you do, watch it as if it were another Nancy Meyers film, don't connect it with Jane Austen. If you want to watch a Pride and Prejudice true adaptation, go and watch the BBC mini series. You can't possibly find a better one.
I don't know where to begin to explain my desperation. Lets start with the plot. Pride and Prejudice is first and foremost, a book written to criticize in a humorous manner the ways of society in the early 19th century. On a second level, it is a novel of characters, meaning that it's progress and outcome depends on character development. It is not a romantic novel! I can't say that loud enough to be understood. Even if you ignore the book's purpose and only look at the relationship parts you have to be a fool to think Austen as a hopeless romantic. Those who have read Austen know, that her idea of love had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with true character and personal growth. The basis of Mr.Darcy and Elizabeth's relationship is mutual trust and respect, not love. Austen thought of love as the achievement of years of trials for those with true character. Austen's characters were not lovestruck puppies. That alone renders this movie useless. With it's melancholic shots, and Lizzy whirling around on swing and professing her love in the rain on a secluded location. What a load of crap. Maybe they were filming Jane Eyre but didn't yet know.
And now that the plot abuse is behind us, lets move on to the miscast. Matthew Macfadyemn's "Mr.Darcy" is a constantly constipated little rich boy. At the first part of the story, he isn't proud, or sceptical, or frustrated with what he then viewed as an inferior social circle to the one he was accustomed to. Not in a single shot do we see even a hint of his desperation and his inner struggle between the honour of his family and his affection for Elizabeth. He just needed a bathroom break. I could write a review on his awful acting skills alone(as far as Mr. Darcy is concerned). I am not going to grace Keira Knightley with analyzing her performance. I thought her jaw would pop out in some of the scenes from the constant petulant child gig. If that was Elizabeth Bennet I should just go up the roof of my house and jump.
Succinctly, Lydia was not an arrogant, wild teenager, she was just loud. Mrs Bennet was a servant into her own house. Mr.Bennet was boring and witless. Mr.Collins was not funny (among other things). How did you pull that off? He is the reason behind one of the funniest scenes ever written and I think I cried a bit at how awful it was in this film. Lady Catherine De Bourgh was serious, she was not at all the caricature Austen wrote. The rest were a blur. Oh! And "Caroline" was actually Miss Bingley.
Here is where I should mention that the creators were even unable to do a simple research on the period. The Bennets were farmers, with pigs running around their house. Lizzy met Darcy at 6 in the morning dressed in her nightgown for Christ's sake. "Caroline's" breasts were spilling out of her dress. Yes ladies and gentlemen, that is exactly how people dressed in the early 19th century.
Where is the characteristic wit and humour? Where is the character development? Where is the tension that suppressed feelings cause and the relief that comes with their expression? Where is the greatness of the secondary characters? Where is the ridicule of the inability of the characters to communicate? Where is Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice in this film?
To conclude, if it were just a period film, I would probably have simply watched it and forgotten it two days later. But they used Jane Austen's name and work and then made a farce out of it.
I have loved Jane Austen for the greatest part of my life. I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time when I was 12 years old and have read it hundreds of times since. To say I love Pride and Prejudice as a book, would be an understatement. It is a part of myself. It has touched me deeply, in the way that works of art are supposed to touch a soul but rarely do. This movie is a ridicule of said work. Watch with caution.