It was pretty good.

Rating: 6/10 (12 September 2006)

The production details, like Longbourne's decor for example, were outstandingly good. In the scenes with the Bennet family at home, brilliant technical work produced a sense of actually being there, chasing the sisters around the house. I was reminded of Taylor and Burton's 'Taming of the Shrew', because of the decor and the actors' vivacity. A couple of weaknesses let the side down a bit for me though: the clichéd shots of people in the rain, with heavy-handed symbolism, and some pretty modern lapses of vernacular speech, especially Lizzies' interrogative "What are you doing here?", demanded of none other than Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy. This had me thinking that the script-writers may have been hijacked, by cute actresses, into giving the dialogues a more 'modern' feel. Miss Knightly did a very good job, although she injected a large dose of self-indulgence, albeit unconsciously, into Lizzies manner. The actor playing Mr Bingly, outrageous hair aside, was every bit the doting companion, whilst Mathew McFayden presented rather a washed out Darcy, who seemed in need of a strong coffee most of the time.
Darcy, then, was disappointing. Instead of smouldering, he appeared to merely smoke: the dark turbulent depths to his character simply didn't expose themselves. Where was the arrogance?
Finally, Britain's sharp class divide failed to register against a background of frivolity and teen romance. This divide is what Pride and Prejudice is all about, after all, and so the resulting recipe lacked the piquancy of a genuinely 19th century dish. The girls' hopes for the two men are thus merely teen loves, not the despairing passions, impossible to be requited, that Jane Austin penned.
All the same, a pretty good film.