<p>TheMom and I saw the new P&P movie the other day. While sitting in the theater waiting for the movie, we were debating, as we often have and always will, the merits of two BBC productions. I said that the fact that the one that displays Colin Firth sitting in a 18th-century bathtub does not necessarily make it the superior production, at which point one of the two gay guys seated on the other side of me entered into the argument, saying that TheMom’s thesis sounded valid to him. I asked if I should switch seats so that they could be next to each other.</p>
<p>At least one review calls the production Byronic and certainly there’s
that cast given to Darcy. “Atmospheric” would be another good
descriptor, due to all the rain and gauzy foggy scenes. The
production values are very rich but earthy, with much squalor evident
in and about the Bennett household, to the point that I think it’s
inaccurate that such would be the conditions of even a country
gentleman. Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennett seems to be on the edge
of being psychotic and I found other Sutherlands, from the re-make of
“The Italian Job” to “M<em>A</em>S*H” intruding.</p>
<p>Running at 2:08, two to four hours shorter than the BBC productions,
the movie has a compressed, sometimes hurried quality. The story has
been cut down and to considerable disadvantage. The romance between Elizabeth and Wickham is reduced to one scene at the dance, Mr. Bingley’s second sister and her husband, Mr. Hurst, are absent in toto (though what
they’re doing in a small yappy dog is beyond me), and even the search
for Lydia is attenuated, with much of it off-screen.</p>
<p>There are some things to recommend the movie. Mrs. Bennett is the
least caricatured of the three productions (this plus the two BBC’s).
Small town England looks less like a RenFaire version of same and
things like the country ball struck me as having great verisimilitude.
Otoh, they do things like having Bingley, portrayed as an amiable
doofus, look in on Jane when she is sick at Longbourne, going up to
her bedroom, an incomprehensible anachronism.</p>
<p>Kitty and Lydia as silly little twits are well done, I thought. But
I did not care much for the Jane, I preferred both of the other Darcys
to this one, and I absolutely loathed this version of Mr. Collins.
But my biggest objection is to Keira Knightley as Elizabeth, who,
while being easy on the eyes and delivering exactly the same lines as
the other production, has far too contemporary a persona that, given
the other attempts at faithfulness, stands out even more glaringly.
And then there is the ending, which, to use the appropriate critical
term, sucks dead fish with a straw: Elizabeth and Darcy, engaged but
not married, on a foggy dawn outside of Pemberley, looking as if they
should be dressed in jeans what with their great informality, holding
hands as Elizabeth tries on the name “Mrs. Darcy” over and over and
over and over again. I wanted to grab my submachine gun before I
remembered that I don’t have one.</p>
<p>Other points: the film is over-scored and the number of very tight close-ups gives an almost claustrophobic feeling at times.</p>
<p>As a nice dessert, we do get Judi Dench as Lady Catherine de Bourg
(spelling?) for the far too few cut down minutes she’s on screen.</p>