Good but the script was not

Rating: 5/10 (28 October 2005)

The film was well presented, the acting was competent except for the scene between Darcy and Elizabeth where she finally accepts him: MacFadyean was a little hammy there.
Overall, the script was too far from the original text and it grated. Why change the classic lines for no reason? The rejection scene was well filmed and acted but the lines again were not right.
Where was that classic line, "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you"? Then Darcy goes and insults her family and in particular, her mother. Hardy Austenesque.
And then there's that absolute clanger after the Lady Catherine de Bourg confrontation scene. "For once in your life why don't you leave me alone?". Again hardly sounds Austenesque.
Also in the scene where Mr Bennett talks to Elizabeth about Darcy after his proposal, she tells her father all about Darcy's good deed. I wonder why the scriptwriter felt the need to include this unAusten invention. The book left the father in the dark and so it should remain.
One doesn't wish a faithful adaptation of Austen's original text, but at least leave the classic lines alone. Call me a purist, but too many people know and treasure these lines. To hear them mangled is a cringing experience. The sad fact is that these lines need not have been changed. Time would not have been saved and clarity would not have been added. It just goes to show that there is really only one Jane Austen and Deborah Moggach isn't she.