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Friday, November 25, 2005

Pride and Prejudice

Wednesday night a friend from work and I went to see Pride and Prejudice. I think it was a good version although I will have to be very unoriginal and agree with almost every review I read about the film which is:


  • It is a pretty good version and mostly faithful to the novel.
  • They should have stuck to Austin’s dialog. I mean, Austin was a genius at wonderful witty little exchanges. Why mess with perfection?
  • It was well cast. There was one review that said that Keira Knightley was a bad choice for Elizabeth Bennet because she was too beautiful for the part and it is the older sister, Jane, who is supposed to be the great beauty. I guess it just goes to show you that different people have different standards of beauty because I thought she was fine for the part and not especially beautiful when compared to Rosamund Pike’s Jane. As for the rest of the cast, what can I say? Donald Sutherland! He is awesome. And Judy Dench too. She did a wonderful Lady Catherine de Bourg!
  • Even though it was really good, it was not as good as the BBC mini-series with Colin Firth.


All in all, it was fun to see. We saw it at the Michigan Theater which is always fun even though the seats aren’t too comfortable. The elegance and beautiful surroundings of the theater sort of make up for that though. There weren’t too many men in the audience which I thought was funny. Oh well, all those guys are missing out on a good story.

My favorite part was a group of teenage girls sitting down on the main floor giggling throughout the film in a way that really reminded me of Lydia and Kitty. I wondered if they saw themselves a bit in those characters. Even though Austin didn’t particularly paint them favorably, I have to admit that I always found that pair to be somewhat charming. The whole giddiness of their characters was always really refreshing and I hope that those girls didn’t feel they should reign in their joy because such behavior was, at one time, frowned upon. Judging by the noises I heard as that group exited the theater, I would say there isn’t much danger in that!

2 comments:

Xenlighten said...

Went to see Pride and Prejudice yesterday at Showcase. This is odd in itself since in the car my worst fears arose when everyone described it as a chick flick.

Despite my trepedation, I really enjoyed it. The Austenian ability to move a love story beyond pith remains in this retelling (at least until the unnecessary last scene).

But what I enjoyed most was the settings and scenary. This I did not fully appreciate from reading the book. I like how great care is taken to portray the settings well and how many touches are added with the maids and people working in the fields.

Jessica said...

Oh, I'm so jealous! The nearest theater showing P&P is more than two and a half hours away. I was horrified when I found out. I've been waiting since August to see it. Curse northern Michigan! I curse it!