Keira Knightley was perfection...and they mucked her up.

Rating: 7/10 (26 November 2005)

For those who go see this new adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and come out disappointed, I have to say, "Lay the blame at the feet of Joe Wright and Deborah Moggach." What those two were smoking when they made this movie, I don't know, but don't let them near it, again.
They slashed important parts of the book's storyline and characterization in order to fit the story into little more than two hours yet still allowed plenty of time for nice long lovely dollies and pans. They took D'Arcy from being a proud but remarkably handsome young man and made him merely shy, leaving the whole blame for the misunderstandings on Elizabeth's shoulders (damned near unforgivable!) They ignored some of the most telling lines in the story -- i.e. Mrs. Bennet's perfect comment as regards Mr. Bingley's sudden departure from Jane, "My only solace is she'll die of a broken heart and THEN he'll be sorry," (or close to that effect) -- and dropped some major moments -- like Mr. Collins' VERY uncomfortable visit with the sisters after Lydia's disgrace -- but then took ten minutes to wander through Pemberly. Major characters are relegated to bit parts (Caroline Bingley, Mr. Wickham) but then suddenly have MAJOR importance in the outcome of the story...and the short shift given Lady Catherine is inexcusable.
I mean, seriously -- it is NOT impossible to make any of Jane Austen's books into good two- hour movies. Emma Thompson did it with "Sense and Sensibility." And Aldous Huxley wrote a remarkable interpretation (not a slavish one but one which perfectly captures the book's spirit and sensibility) of "Pride and Prejudice" for MGM in 1940. And with that one, even though the time period is wrong and Greer Garson is a good ten years too old to play Lizzie, she catches her spirit and own vague arrogance perfectly. Then to top it off, you've got Lawrence Olivier as D'Arcy, who gives a perfect reading of Austen's line -- "I am in no mood to give consequence to the middle classes at play," (ANOTHER line missing from this tripe of a script). So it's just the ineptitude of the two main creators of this new version that messes everything up, so far as I'm concerned.
Seriously, I cannot really fault anything else on the movie. The period is caught beautifully in look and style (I especially like how even Lady Catherine's wigs were not waxed into perfect place...which also points out exactly how involving the movie was NOT). The acting for the most part is good (albeit not great), excepting Keira Knightley, who is just right as Lizzie. I don't even bash Matthew MacFadyen for his bland portrayal of D'Arcy; he was doing the best he could with a wrongly written role -- though in the hands of a more seasoned actor it might (only MIGHT) have been pulled off -- and he is a nice-looking puppy.
It's funny, but this version of the book reminds me more of that God-awful version of "The Scarlet Letter" made with Demi Moore than anything from the BBC. It's like Joe Wright and Deborah Moggach didn't think they needed to worry about people who'd actually read the book and wanted at least the essence of that story in the film. It's like they thought, "It's old; it's been done; let's muck around and see what we some up with." And in doing so, they proved only that they have a tin ear for storytelling and no idea of beauty or grace. Too bad...because Keira Knightley absolutely was close to perfection...and for mucking her up, they ought to be shot.