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Saturday Evening Movie Thread [moviegique]: Pride & Prejudice (2005)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, at least by the (self-proclaimed) most die-hard fans of Austen that the '90s British miniseries interpretation of Pride and Prejudice is the best. This truth is so well fixed in the minds of these fanatics that your humble correspondent felt it necessary to defend the 2005 version, recently released on 4K and picking up another $6M at the box office.

Imagine my delight in discovering that most of you didn't feel that such a defense was necessary. But let's be honest: You're morons.

And, let's be honest further: I like hearing myself speak. Or type as the case may be. So let's look at why this version is the best version of the Austen classic.

Caveat: There aren't as many feature interpretations of P&P as you might think, and only a handful if you eliminate the variants. The first video dramatization of any Austen novel was the 1938 television production of this book, which survives only in transcript form. It was constantly given an hour or two on TV, to say nothing of being a miniseries in '49, '52, '57, '61, etc., until the 1980 "Masterpiece Theater" version (which has a ridiculously lurid playbill). Then nobody touched it for fifteen years, when the BBC did its five-and-a-half hour version, which is the one fiercely defended by some. Since then, it's been butchered and reassembled and given zombies, set in modern day, and made a musical, and so on.

I've seen three versions of P&P. The other two being Bridget Jones' Diary and the 1940 version with Olivier and Greer, featuring the unforgettable exchange:

• Elizabeth Bennet: At this moment it's difficult to believe that you're so proud.


• Mr. Darcy: At this moment it's difficult to believe that you're so prejudiced.

I've looked at the 1995 version, but all BBC productions are so visually impoverished, I can't generally stand more than a few minutes of them if it's not something inherently cheesy like "Dr. Who" or "Day of the Triffids". I give the 1995 producers credit for using 16mm throughout, but it's still distractingly ugly, even re-mastered.

I do find it amusing that the 1995 fans praise its faithfulness to the book when the most famous scene involves Colin Firth getting dumped in a lake (not in the book). But this, perhaps ironically, is the point of tangency leading to my review of the movie.

Because I find the 2005 P&P to be the most faithful. If that sounds contradictory, read on.

Like, is the feminine leg going in the mannish-looking boot? Or coming out of? Since the leg is naked, are we to assume boots were put on first or taken off last? Does the leg have a shoe fetish?

The Experience of Reading

It is generally best, when watching a movie based on a book, to forget that the book exists. In fact, if one is a fan of the book, an argument can be made that one should probably just ignore the filmed versions altogether. I've never been able to bring myself to watch a filmed version of The Secret Garden. Most attempts at bringing Ray Bradbury to the screen are regrettable. And I rather loathe the Jackson Lord of the Rings movies, as a whole.

But the first of the LOTR movies, Fellowship of the Ring, is relevant here. It captures the feel of the Shire rather well. I thought it was okay in the theater, because I could see where Jackson was amping the story up and I could respect that. It made sense from a cinematic standpoint. I actually liked the extended version of Fellowship. (It was only when the second movie turned into Titanic with Superheroes that I got bored.)

So, the thing about Pride and Prejudice, the novel, is that it's exciting. Austen's wordplay is clever. Her plotting is tight, reliance on coincidence notwithstanding. Her characters, surely among the most privileged people to live (prior to the last 50 years, where we've all been privileged) yet nonetheless sympathetic for their plights.

It's natural for a filmmaker, particularly one who loves the literature, to want to put the book on the screen as-is—and yet to do so is to rob the story of its life!

Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice, as a movie, reminds me of what it feels like to read the book, which is the highest commendation I can give a film based on a (good) book. It takes the experience of reading and manages to create a cinematic equivalent for a modern audience. Well, a "modern audience" back in 2005 which was not yet code for "insane sexually confused weirdos".

Each sister more beautiful than the last, but only if you arrange them that way.

Drama and Theatricality

The 2025 re-release of the 2005 Pride & Prejudice begins with a mercifully short intro from director Joe Wright talking about how he wanted to make his interpretation of the classic Jane Austen novel "gritty", but we can ignore that or, more charitably, reinterpret it as "using a word that artists have been using for the last 40 years to try to convince people that their art is somehow better for aping the worst aspects of reality."

What it means in practice is that the Bennet household is very lively. The staff is ever-present, if not addressed, and there's livestock and girls running amok and so on. The Bennet estate is both ridiculously grand (in modern middle-class terms) and almost shamefully run-down. Since the other characters (who are all higher class) live in the sort of sterile, dignified settings that radiate the kind of stultifying boredom this sort of drama is associated with, the victory here is that the audience appreciates the Bennet's circumstances but can also understand how degrading it is for the other characters (particularly Darcy) to have to associate with them.

The blocking is impeccable, as we are often treated to shots of narrow English hallways and small drawing rooms that still somehow manage to showcase five daughters at once. Joe Wright is so good at this, he manages to block moving shots well.

I have assumed that nobody can block static shots well any more because nobody dares leave the camera still. As such, the blocking in dynamic shots—which is infinitely harder—comes out as a slurry. (See your average Marvel fight scene.) But when Wright is tracking around a ballroom following Elizabeth, we can see the other characters moving in and out of the shot, and their feelings reflected in the brief moment on screen.

Intriguingly, Wright's next film, Atonement, uses all the same tricks to the same degree, and it's one of the worst cinematic experiences I've ever had.

But here, it means, the country ball is exciting. Exciting, but also rustic, in the aristocratic English sense.

When she's a ten but her sisters are all crazy.

"Modern Audiences"

Austen has become like Shakespeare, in the sense of being someone whose work is culturally significant, and also so familiar, that the variants on her work constitute their own kind of sub-niche. Particularly in the '90s and early '00s, you had things like Clueless and Bridget Jones' Diary and the like, you had the recognition that you could dress up universal aspects of the story in modern clothing quite profitably.

Where this novel "cheats" is in its overt emotionality. Keira Knightly's Bennet is too demonstrative and also bemused, like she's in on the joke, whereas she's usually interpreted as drily sarcastic and judgmental—the pride and prejudice that give the book its name. Matthew Macfayden's Darcy is instantly smitten and instantly repulsed by that, and the movie is not skimping on the sexual chemistry. Donald Sutherland's profession of affection for Elizabeth is overt, as is his bittersweet willingness to let her go. Brenda Blethyn's lugubrious Mrs. Bennet is very publicly gauche in ways that perhaps don't reflect historical reality.

Along those same lines, and to reference the camerawork again, this movie uses incredibly dated zooms. And by dated, I mean 1970-dated, not 2005-dated. Like zooming in on Charleton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes dated. It's perhaps the only camerawork I think was overdone, as if Wright was worried people weren't going to get it. "Reminder: They're hot for each other!" Similarly, the tacked on victory dialogue added to the American version, where Mr. and Mrs. Darcy get to wallow in their victory is overkill (to me).

And to reinforce my hypocrisy, this kind of bombastic cinema is exactly what I hold against LOTR. It works for me big-time here, perhaps because the story itself is so low-key by modern terms whereas Tolkien's work is still high fantasy and doesn't need amping up. (Of course, this is my taste, and when Peter Jackson is done counting his billions, I'm sure he'll get right on toning things down a notch.)

"Let us picnic in yon John Everett Millais painting."

Production Values

Every shot in this movie is a love song to England. To a bygone England. A long bygone England, one suspects, never to return.

The main theme, an uncredited piece called Dawn by Dario Marinelli, evokes Beethoven beautifully. Wright's choice to set the story in 1797 (when the story was written) versus 1812 (when the story was published) allows him to break from the empire-waisted late regency gowns that were common in 1812. Ten years before digital took over completely, so shot on 35mm film.

The casting of Rosamund Pike as the more beautiful, kinder sister of Knightly is also inspired. Wright gets the most mileage out of Knightly's looks, which are peak, but she's just different enough looking that you can really buy that said looks combined with her personality would make her much less desirable as a romantic partner. The other daughters have all gone on to full careers where they've been allowed to be much prettier. Heh.

The whole affair is done with such energy and passion that it rivals the energy and passion of Austen's writing. In fairness, of course, this is a feature film and trying to compare it to a 5 1/2 hour miniseries (or anything of that length) is truly an apple-and-oranges comparison.

But I am skeptical that any feature of this length could capture the excitement of Austen as well as this film which has nothing to be ashamed of.

Mr. Darcy agrees with me.

Other films this past fortnight:

A Man And A Woman (1966): Claude LeLouch's smash hit with the recognizable theme song about a man and a woman who fall in love and...uh...have problems. There are some remarkable parts here and it avoids the ennui of the '60s French cinema but it's a little slow. Lelouch's last(?) movie is probably going to get a release here as there are retrospectives going on now.

Love Hotel (1985): I mean, sure, 50th anniversary of this Japanese "pink" film so why NOT show it at 10:00AM on a Saturday. No reason my art house can think of, so we trundled off to see this. The "pink" genre is uniquely Japanese and a rather disturbing mix of sex and violence which is too complex for a capsule like this. I would describe it as "okay with some standout elements".

The Shrouds: David Cronenberg is back! Again! I like this current era of his movies where he seems to have returned to form. Broody, paranoid techno-driven body horror. In this case, our hero (looking suspiciously like the director himself) is a widow who has come up with the smash-hit, can't-lose concept of putting 3D scanners in burial shrouds so you can watch your love one rot! We liked it, but as with Crimes of the Future, it's hard to recommend.

Monty Python And The Holy Grail (1975): The 50th anniversary 4K restoration is gorgeous (except for one sequence which was over-exposed beyond repair, I guess) and the jokes still hold up pretty well. Probably one you should watch at home unless you want the chant-along experience.

The Surfer: Nic Cage is back! Again! After last year's The Arcadian, The Boy and I were wondering if we were going to end up short-changed but no, The Surfer is 100% pure Cage. He's in every single scene as a business man who's going quickly insane after some Beach Bullies keep him from surfing on the beach he grew up on. But he gets better! Then things get worse! A lot of twists and turns and WTFs keep this interesting. Also: Australia.

Vulcanizadora: The sequel to 2014's Buzzard. Marty's back, and he's a bigger eff-up than ever. Overlong at 85 mintues, The Boy enjoyed ths more than I did, but I definitely showed growth on the director and acting front. (https://moviegique.com/2015/03/buzzard/)