I never thought there would be a movie version of Pride and Prejudice that could match or surpass the BBC/A&E miniseries - Pride and Prejudice from 1995. I was so wrong.

Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy exceeded my expectations. I had read the mixed reviews, so I didn’t expect it to measure up. It did. I also didn’t expect Macfadyen to be a good Mr. Darcy - no one can top Colin Firth - but he was quite good.

The best part of the movie was the cinematography - it was a beautiful movie to look at and I thought the use of rain was well done. I appreciated the use of candle lighting for the night scenes and the closeness of the Bennet house.

The next well done bit was the casting. All players were well cast. The most brilliant casting was for Mr. Collins - Tom Hollander was fantastic and really nailed down the creepy pedantic personality. I liked this Mr. Bingley better than the dude in the miniseries. And this Wickham was better as well.

My only quibble, and it is a quibble that I read in the negative reviews when the movie came out, is the additional scene at the end. Totally unnecessary, if sweet.

P&P gets 4.5 stars out of 5.

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1. I was also pleased with this version, though I think I still prefer the A&E;one (I just don’t often have 6 hours to devote to P&P;!) I did like this Bingley better as well, though I disagree about Wickham. Not sure why, just didn’t care for his portrayal.

   On a purely “nobody but real geeks care” note, they got the time period of the clothes completely wrong in the movie vs. how it was written, and A&E;was much closer. But reference the note qualification. :)

   What I liked best was the relationship between the parents, even though compared to the book, the A&E;portrayal was much more true to the original.

   Posted by beth  on  04/06/08  at  01:59 PM

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