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Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen are drowned in the shadow of the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice |
Director: Joe Wright
Cast: Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Bennet), Matthew Macfadyen
(Mr Darcy), Brenda Blethyn (Mrs Bennet), Donald Sutherland (Mr Bennet), Tom
Hollander (Mr Collins), Rosamund Pike (Jane Bennet), Carey Mulligan (Kitty
Bennet), Jena Malone (Lydia Bennet), Talulah Riley (Mary Bennet), Judi Dench
(Lady Catherine de Bourgh), Simon Woods (Mr Bingley), Tamzin Merchant
(Georgiana Darcy), Claudie Blakely (Charlotte Lucas), Kelly Reilly (Caroline
Bingley), Rupert Friend (Mr Wickham), Penelope Wilton (Mrs Gardner), Peter
Wight (Mr Gardiner)
I’ve written before about certain books having been adapted
so successfully there feels very little point rolling out another. If ever an
adaptation set this principle, it’s the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Not only did it
perfectly capture the spirit and style of the book, with perfect scripting and
direction, but the two lead actors – Jennifer Ehle and especially Colin Firth –
were simply perfect (for all his achievements, the first line of Firth’s
obituary will forever be “Darcy Dies”.)
So Joe Wright and his team were already climbing a mountain
when they announced plans to make a new adaptation of Jane Austen’s most
beloved novel. What they’ve produced in the end is a well-made, handsomely
mounted film full of visual invention – that has been pretty much rejected by
nearly everyone I know who loves Austen. It’s a film that, in attempting to
plough its own furlough, has ended up not really pleasing anyone: for the
casual viewer it’s an entertaining but forgettable watch. For the Austen fan
it’s just plain not right.
Structurally the film places Elizabeth’s relationship with
Darcy slap bang at the centre, and has little to no interest in anything else.
This leads to major themes and relationships being neglected or outright
abandoned in some bizarre cut choices. The film wants to front-and-centre Lizzy’s
increasing isolation – so Jane is dispatched from the film for almost over an
hour. Even more oddly, Wickham is cut down to a few spare scenes – which makes
her passionate sympathy for him and anger against Darcy make very little sense.
All this isolation also means we never really understand the social
implications and importance of marriage – in fact the whole thing is basically
turned into a Cinderella romance: Rich Man Meets Poor Girl (And No One Else
Matters).
Which means a lot of the focus for the film lands on Keira
Knightley. Is there a more controversial actor in film than Knightley? Oscar-nominated
for the role, among my Austen-loving friends I have found only revulsion
against her performance. She plays it with spirit but too much of a modern
sensibility. She’s fine, but she’s
just not convincing: she doesn’t look like her, she doesn’t have her warmth and
wit and seems more like she’s wandered in from some sort of “flirty girls”
comedy. Nothing really communicates the character’s intelligence and wit – and
Knightley probably looks a little too modern for the whole thing to work.
On top of that the film doesn’t want her to be too
unsympathetic at any point, so dials down her judgemental nature, and also reduces
any possibility of us judging her partiality for Wickham by mostly removing him
from the film. However, this also removes many of the obstacles from the plot
that stand in the way of romance.
Matthew MacFadyen does a decent job as “Nice Guy In A Period
Drama”, but the character is just wrong for Darcy. Like Lizzy’s tendency to
rush to judgement, Darcy’s apparent coldness and snobbery have been watered
down to almost invisibility. His first announcement of love is so genuine, so
gentle, so loving that you are amazed that Elizabeth dismisses him out of hand.
It’s no surprise this Darcy turns out to be a decent bloke, the edges of the
character have been completely shaved off. This puts a big old dent in the
plot, reduces his character development, and ruins the impact of sweet later
moments like Darcy’s uncertainty when the two meet at Pemberley.
There are some good performances though. Tom Hollander is
very funny as a social-climbing Mr Collins. Donald Sutherland gets so much
warmth and twinkly good humour out of Mr Bennet that Wright even ends the film
on him (another odd choice, but never mind). Judi Dench could play Lady
Catherine standing on her head. Rosamund Pike is rather good as Jane – she
totally feels right for the period. Brenda Blethyn largely manages to avoid
turning Mrs Bennet into a complete stereotype. Saying that, Simon Woods
portrays a version of Bingley so bumbling, tittering and awkward you are amazed
either Jane or Darcy could be interested in him, let alone bear to spend time
with him.
But then large chunks of the film feel odd. The screenplay
works overtime to turn the film into a straight-forward star-crossed lovers
story: so it’s Darcy and Elizabeth all the way, and the film is desperate to
make them both likeable from the off. And if that means that, in a film called Pride and Prejudice, both the pride and
the prejudice have to be junked to make sure even the stupidest audience member
will like the hero and heroine, well that’s apparently a price worth paying.
Lowering the Bennets’ social status as far as the film does, also turns the
story into a full-on Cinderella territory.
Darcy and Bingley are so posh an entire room falls silent when they walk in – in
comparison the Bennets are so poor they share their house with pigs.
Ah yes the pigs. Why? The Bennets aren’t paupers. If they
were, why would Collins want the place? Why would they be invited to the ball?
Why would Bingley and Darcy even consider them as partners? Why would a family
so aware of impressions have a home that is literally
full of shit all the time? Why is Mr Bennet scruffy and unshaven – and why
doesn’t anyone care? Who designed this? If the Bennets are so fixated on
getting good marriages why do they literally live in a pig sty? It’s a visual
idea that undermines the whole story.
I'm not joking. Here is a pig walking through the Bennet house. |
It’s full of things like this that don’t feel right. The
film junks most of the language of the original book, which makes it sound
jarring (it even re-works Darcy’s first proposal: “in vain I have struggled, it
will not do…” – large numbers of Austen lovers I know can recite those lines
verbatim. This film apparently thought it could create a better version. It
couldn’t). Large chunks of the film happen in the rain like some sort of
version of Wuthering Heights. Why is
that? Is it because professions of love in the rain are romantic in a Mills and Boonish sort of way? Or is it
an echo back to Firth’s wet shirt?
Emma Thompson’s sublime adaptation of Sense and Sensibility demonstrated that it is completely possible
to adapt an Austen novel into a two-hour film and still preserve the
characters, relationships, major events and themes of the book, while also
making a story that stands on its own two feet for non-Austen-ites. This film
bungles its attempt to do the same.
But there are things Wright gets right. The camera work and
transitions are lovely. A long tracking shot that weaves in and around the ball
early in the film, taking in every single character is not only a technical
marvel but really gets across a feeling of what these hectic and bustling social
events are like. There is a beautiful time transition at Longbourn, as
Elizabeth rotates on a screen and the camera takes on a POV shot, showing the
seasons changing each time the camera revolves around through 180 degrees. The
cinematography is luscious and Wright – his first film – shows he was more than
ready for the step-up from TV.
It’s just a shame that the film they made doesn’t quite
work. It doesn’t capture the sense of the book. It doesn’t capture the sense of
the characters. It makes bizarre and just plain wrong choices. It’s a decent
film, but it is not a good adaptation of the novel. And that’s a major problem,
because if you are going to adapt something as widely loved and revered as
this, you better bloody well understand the novel – and I don’t think enough
people here did. It’s told with a sweeping romantic style – but they are
adapting the perception of Pride and
Prejudice rather than the actual story. The chemistry and romance aren’t there:
the film even ends with an odd sequence of Sutherland and Knightley, probably
because there was better chemistry between these two than the two leads. It’s a
film that basically doesn’t work at all.
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