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Writer - Deborah Moggach, based on the novel by Jane Austen

Director of photography - Roman Osin

Editor - Paul Tothill

Music -  Dario Marianelli

Production designer - Sarah Greenwood

Producers - Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Paul Webster

Focus Features. 128 minutes. Rated PG for adult themes.

STARRING: Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Bennet), Matthew Macfadyen (Mr. Darcy), Brenda Blethyn (Mrs. Bennet), Donald Sutherland (Mr. Bennet), Tom Hollander (Mr. Collins), Rosamund Pike (Jane Bennet), Jena Malone (Lydia Bennet), Talulah Riley (Mary Bennet), Carey Mulligan (Kitty Bennet) and Judi Dench (Lady Catherine de Bourg).

Jane Austen’s novels are undergoing something of a renaissance. It’s strange that an age which has so thoroughly rejected absolute truth, so lovingly embraces a work which famously opens claiming a particularly “truth” is universally  acknowledged.

Hence, whilst the book has had numerous screen adaptations over the years – it appears to be getting re-visited with greater and greater frequency as time progresses.

The first major filmed version of Pride and Prejudice was made in 1940 starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. The film does an incredible job of cramming most of the action into a film of just under two hours, but then changes an important detail during the closing scenes which undoes much of its previous good work.

Far more faithful to the novel was a TV adaptation first shown on the BBC in 1979. Whilst it had dated fairly rapidly and suffers a little from cheap sets, it captures much of the spirit of Austen’s novel which other versions have missed. Regret lurks behind Mr. Bennet’s witty one liners, and whilst Elizabeth Bennet is slightly over caustic at times, her faults are more to the fore than in the majority of other versions.

Easily the most popular version to date is the BBC 1995 re-make starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. With a run-time of 5 hours it managed to include practically everything in the book, and still have time to add in the now celebrated shot of Colin Firth emerging from Pemberley Hall Lake. Jennifer Ehle does a reasonably good job of Lizzie Bennet, although the script brushes a little too lightly over her flaws, and the wonderful support from Benjamin Whitrow (Mr. Bennet), Alison Steadman (Mrs. Bennet) and David Bamber (Mr. Collins) threaten to steal the show at every opportunity. But the real strength of the BBC’s version is Colin Firth’s portrayal of Mr. Darcy, which, wet smock aside, grasps perfectly his essential goodness, albeit tinged by his initial pride.

This decade has brought a number of attempts to re-contextualise the Bennet-Darcy story, or rather to appropriate key elements in the process of forging a new one. Helen Fielding’s novel Bridget Jones’ Diary set a trend by borrowing a  variety of themes from Austen, notably including Mr. Darcy. The association was further galvanised by Colin Firth taking the role in the 2001 cinematic adaptation. Two years later Pride and Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy (2003) took the names of Darcy, Bennet, Bingley and Collins and wove them into a high school drama. Film critics in years to come will look back on the last ten years and wonder quite what it was that drew so many filmmakers to the idea of re-contextualising great works of English fiction in American High Schools. This, however, was no 10 Things I Hate About You, and no-one even dared release it back in Austen’s homeland Britain.

The most significant of these recent re-workings is Gurinder Chadha’s Bollywood-esque adaptation Bride and Prejudice (2004). It translates the story it into a genre almost entirely alien to the reserved early 19^th century English novel, and dispenses with much of the detail accordingly. However, the two cultures have much more in common than it would originally appear. Austen’s England was a place where the traditional way of life was changing under the weight of industrial revolution, and the accepted social norms such as class division (or more accurately class sub-division) and marriages arranged primarily for material gain were being challenged. Chadha places the story in the join between east and west, where eastern traditions, in many ways not dissimilar from those described above, are changing as they come into contact with the west. Hence, whilst Bride and Prejudice plays fast and loose with its source, it captures so much of it’s essence as to require us to take it more seriously than it takes itself.

It was another of Chadha’s east vs. west films, Bend it Like Beckham, that proved to be a breakthrough role for Keira Knightley, the star of this latest adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Whilst some have criticised the film for being made just ten years after what many consider the definitive BBC version, it seems only fair to point out that despite numerous made-for-TV versions, it has been 65 years since a faithful version of the story found its way to the silver screen.

The biggest strength of this new version is it uses the potential of the big screen to its fullest. Director Joe Wright fills the screen with bold colour, striking images and interesting camerawork that far surpass any of the previous versions of the story. The visuals here don’t just present the action, they help you inhabit it, and feel it – giving the story a broad scope, and a sense of grandeur. Sadly, at times this visual flair strays a little too far and you start to wonder if the English Tourist Board supplied some of the funding. Even then, less cynical viewers will enjoy the shots, even as they wonder about a trip to Derbyshire.

The best scenes in the film, however, are those shot inside – notably the two ball room scenes. Both capture the energy of the occasion, for once helping the viewer understand Darcy’s disdain for the first ball, whilst stressing the difference between him and Elizabeth. The second ball, at Mr Bingley’s house, Netherfield, is far less vulgar, but here the camera, the script and the choreography, combine superbly to weave numerous conversations together as the various characters swap partners and then return to them later in the dance. It is easily the highlight of the whole film, as the camera swoops and dances itself around the ball room.

Whilst the dialogue in the Netherfield ball sequence sparks and crackles with a wit and perception that is typical of Austen, much of this scene is not in fact from the book. One of the strangest things about the film is the way it creates Austen-esque sounding quotes whilst leaving out many of the original’s best, and most celebrated, quotes. One wonders for example, whether Donald Sutherland signed up for the role before he had noticed that the script stripped Mr. Bennet of many of his best lines.

Some of this is essentially due to the difficulty of squeezing a decent sized novel into a film of just 2 hours. The 1995 version ran to over 5 hours, and still chopped some of the dialogue. In fact, this latest film does remarkably well to retain so much of the spirit of the film in such a short film. At times it does feel a little rushed, and, as noted above, some beloved lines do fall by the wayside. But it is an incredible achievement to make such a work of literature accessible enough to top the British Box office for several weeks, without betraying its message.

Whilst Deborah Moggach’s screenplay is strong in that respect, the direction sometimes fails to grasp the subtleties of Austen’s novel. In particular, various aspects of the story are polarized such that they over-emphasize the difference between Darcy and the Bennets. In the book, society seems to be criticised for making distinctions between Darcy and Mr Bennet, which is turned on it’s head by Elizabeth’s rebuttal “He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman’s daughter”. In the 1980 version the difference in the standard of living was very slight, although in the 1995 version it was more tangible. Here it has been exaggerated to an even greater degree. Pigs stroll through the hallways of Bennet’s Longbourn. Meanwhile Darcy has moved from the attractive Lyme Park to the huge and impressive Chatsworth house.

Another casualty of this polarisation is Mr Bingley. In the novel he is amiable, and at ease in company, and though Darcy considers him a little naïve, his romantic edge is ultimately vindicated. Sadly, here he is reduced to a being a rich young fool. He is none the less likeable, but certainly not someone who Darcy would choose as a close friend, or that Jane would choose as a husband. Similarly, Mr. Wickham lacks the screen time needed to really demonstrate his more insidious nature.

Thankfully, the film gives arguably the most faithful portrayal yet of Mr. Collins. Whilst previous versions have played him either as a buffoon, or something more slimy, this version nails him as the dull, pernickety preserver of societies foibles that he is in the novel. His pride is never more apparent than when he seeks to be humble, and he is never more awkward socially, than when he is trying charm his way into circles which, deep down, he considers beyond him.

Keira Knightley’s take on Elizabeth Bennet is similarly interesting. Many have criticised the choice of Knightley to play Elizabeth, pointing out how she is meant to be less attractive than her sister, and only “tolerable” in Darcy’s initial estimation. Such criticisms seem to overlook a number of points. Firstly, that this is probably the first version of P&P where Jane (played by Rosamund Pike) has been arguably more attractive than Lizzie. Secondly, that Knightley’s makeup and wardrobe make her look more earthy, and she uses her features expertly to hide her natural good looks. Thirdly, Darcy later radically revises his first impression, such that he considers her “one of the handsomest women” of his acquaintance.

What this Lizzie Bennet does have, however, is more vigour, and passion. Occasionally this is a little too twenty-first century, but generally, it brings out a side of Lizzie Bennet that has long been absent from filmed version of the story. Jennifer Ehle does a fine job of the character in the 1995 version, but is still somewhat matronly, never really attractive, no matter how effective her verbal sparring is. It’s also easier to see why she is her father’s favourite.

Opposite Knightley, Matthew MacFadyen, by his own admission, plays Darcy as “a young man who’s lost, who’s grieving for his parents and has this huge responsibility of running the house and looking after his sister”.[1] Whilst this doesn’t really reflect the portrayal in the book, as a by product it captures how the book’s Darcy is ill at ease in unfamiliar company. Sadly though, this makes the character rather impenetrable, and ultimately rather dull. It’s difficult to feel for him the way we do for Lizzie, and harder still to see what attracts her to him. Sure he’s rich and noble, but there’s not even a hint of chemistry between them.

Perhaps this is why Lady Catherine (played by Dame Judi Dench) objected to the match so strongly. It’s hard to see why an actress of such range and depth would sign up for the type of character which she has so thoroughly exhausted elsewhere. She’s unlikely to win anything, prove anything or learn anything by pulling her aristocratic-old-battleaxe routine out of the cupboard, and from the moment she appears on screen it’s obvious that this is just going to be a re-hash of her rich, posh, and grumpy old woman roles in Shakespeare in Love and The Importance of Being Earnest.

As the five main adaptations of Pride and Prejudice go, this one perhaps bears the strongest resemblance to Lydia. It’s excitable, exuberant, boisterous, all passion, flair and love of colours. Unfortunately, it fails to comprehend the finer subtleties of what is expected; the things that ultimately matter.

Were the films-as-Bennet-daughters metaphor to be extended then Bride and Prejudice would fit the bill as Kitty. Wild, like Lydia, but rather incidental to the main story, although no less interesting in its own right. As the oldest of the five, Olivier’s 1940 version makes a wonderful Jane. It’s beautiful, hopelessly romantic, and so good natured as to be unable to think ill even of Lady Catherine.

The comparison between the two remaining films and Elizabeth and Mary fares less well, save perhaps that the 1995 version, like Mary, is very well read, almost studious but unfortunately a little too stolid at times.

However, of all Mr. Bennet’s daughters, the one who would be most at home in our society would be Lydia. Given that, Joe Wright’s version is arguably the most effective version for our time. It may not impress the proud defenders of the BBC version, but then maintaining the status quo was never what the book was about.  

¹‘Mr Darcy? Mind Your Own Business.’ Daily Telegraph, Arts Section 7^th September 2004. available here.