{"id":33343,"date":"2005-11-14T07:00:01","date_gmt":"2005-11-14T15:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2005\/11\/14\/raymonds-review-of-pride-and-prejudice-keira-knightley-version\/"},"modified":"2005-11-14T07:00:01","modified_gmt":"2005-11-14T15:00:01","slug":"raymonds-review-of-pride-and-prejudice-keira-knightley-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20051114-01\/?p=33343","title":{"rendered":"Raymond&#8217;s review of Pride and Prejudice (Keira Knightley version)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P>\nThis weekend I saw the latest reinterpretation of Jane Austen&#8217;s\n<A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.pemberley.com\/janeinfo\/pridprej.html\">\n<I>Pride and Prejudice<\/I><\/A>.\nI was introduced to the wondrous world of Jane Austen by the\n<A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/drama\/prideandprej.shtml\">\nmarvelous BBC adaptation of <I>Pride and Prejudice<\/I> from 1995<\/A>.\n(The\n<A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.miramax.com\/bride\/\">\nBollywood interpration<\/A>\nI found diverting,\nbut Darcy&#8217;s &#8220;Pemberley&#8221; hotel was not as awe-inspiring\nas it needed to be for the story to work.\nThe &#8220;Mr.&nbsp;Collins&#8221; character was a riot, though.)\n<\/P>\n<P>\nI went in with some trepidation, because some\nmembers of the Jane Austen Society of North America\nfelt that this was the\n<A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=5008725\">\nWORST ADAPTATION EVER<\/A>.\n(Okay, not really, but it was fun to write.)\nThe best sound bite from the director was his reaction to\npeople who were all nitpicking over details:\n&#8220;They can, I dunno, go and jump in the lake.&#8221;\nWas this a backhanded reference to the swoon-inducing\nlake scene in the heralded BBC production?\n(A scene which, by the way, doesn&#8217;t exist in the book.)\n<\/P>\n<P>\nI enjoyed this adaptation.\nSure it wasn&#8217;t a literal interpretation,\nbut if you want a literal interpretation,\ngo watch Colin Firth again.\n(Warning: Spoilers, but I mean, come on, like you don&#8217;t know\nthe story backwards and forwards by now!)\n<\/P>\n<UL>\n<LI>I think Wright was closer to the mark on the\n    relative pulchritude of the characters.\n    Jane is prettier than Elizabeth (something that most\n    adaptations get backwards),\n    Wickham is charming and handsome \n    (in a swoonily Orlando Bloom sort of way),\n    and Charlotte is homely.\n<LI>I enjoyed Wright&#8217;s take on Mr.&nbsp;Collins.\n    Still sweaty, but less snivelly than the BBC version.\n<LI>Many people didn&#8217;t like Matthew MacFadyen&#8217;s Darcy, but\n    I thought he did a good job,\n    though his entrance to the Meryton assembly was overdone.\n<LI>Caroline Bingley still had that condescending attitude,\n    but it&#8217;s hard to top Anna Chancellor from the BBC version.\n<LI>You could tell where the new dialog was introduced.\n    It didn&#8217;t have quite that Jane Austen magic to it,\n    and in places sounded anachronistic.\n    (For example, when the servant introduces\n    &#8220;Mrs.&nbsp;Bennett, Miss&nbsp;Bennett, Miss&nbsp;Bennett,\n    and Miss&nbsp;Bennett.&#8221;\n    Only the eldest unmarried daughter goes by the name &#8220;Miss&nbsp;X&#8221;;\n    the younger ones include their Christian names.\n    But it made for a cute joke, so I&#8217;ll forgive it.)\n<LI>The humor was well-done.\n<LI>I enjoyed that when Darcy makes a surprise early return to Pemberley,\n    you can hear in your mind Elizabeth saying to herself,\n    &#8220;crap crap crap crap crap crap&#8221;.\n<LI>In the scenes where Elizabeth learns of Lydia&#8217;s situation\n    and where she is confronted by Lady Catherine,\n    it felt as if Keira Knightley were channeling Jennifer Ehle.\n    Somehow, even though it was Keira&#8217;s lips moving,\n    the voice coming out sounded just like Jennifer Ehle&#8217;s&#8230;\n<LI>I think the director was trying to make me puke or induce some\n    sort of epileptic seizure.\n    One scene is shot from a rapidly-spinning camera (woozy)\n    and a fabricated dream sequence was introduced by a really\n    annoying sequence with flashing colors.\n<LI>In my mind, the two fabricated scenes at the end were awful.\n<\/UL>\n<P>\nOverall, though, I&#8217;d give the movie a strong recommendation.\n<\/P>\n<P>\nBy the way,\n<A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.biography.com\/global\/listings\/series_showcase.jsp?EGrpType=Series&amp;Id=11266238\">\nthe Biography Channel is re-running the BBC <I>Pride and Prejudice<\/I><\/A> \nstarting tonight.\nPsst, Biography Channel, news flash:\n<I>Pride and Prejudice<\/I> is not a biography.\nElizabeth Bennett is a <STRONG>fictional<\/STRONG> character.\n<\/P>\n<P>\n[Edit 11am: Fixed spelling of Ms.&nbsp;Knightley&#8217;s name.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A satisfying adaptation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[103],"class_list":["post-33343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-non-computer"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>A satisfying adaptation.<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}