Pride and Prejudice and a bit about Darcy's character this week we're doing
Bride & Prejudice Lizzie's character and what Lizzie and Darcy are not Darcy's
not a Byronic hero which is good because the essence of a Byronic hero is
tortured and tormented by his past and moody and only the pure love of whoever
can save me and bleh this girl's love will change me is after
all basically what 50 shades of grey runs on moody brooding Christian Grey is
saved by the purest sweet innocent love of Anna and also by terrible terrible
awful attempts at witty banter you remember how I said that Lizzie and
Darcy like elements tend to creep into romantic comedies okay well the witty
banter is one of those or at least attempts at witty banter the other one
is dislike initially turning to love or in modern romantic comedies outright
hatred and loathing turning into love important point though Lizzie doesn't
hate Darcy at least not initially and Darcy doesn't hate Lizzie at all she
does kind of dislike him for being a haughty sod but that's not quite the
same thing the novel is about Lizzie coming to terms with her feelings for
Darcy his feelings at least are set pretty early on his arc is concerned not
with his emotions but with his behavior if you both hate each other in a rom-com
then you're either watching the awful truth or you're listening to the Pina
Colada song by mistake if one of you hates the other then you may be
watching Sweet Home Alabama side note the conceit of that movie is stupid in
the state of Alabama you don't need the permission of your spouse to get a
divorce you can just go to the judge directly also if you're going to turn
hate into love you should at least make sure that both of your characters are
you know loveable maybe yeah anyway other examples of initial dislike
turning into love are Philadelphia Story it happened one night 27 dresses 10
things i hate about you but I'm a cheerleader which does the same thing
but with lesbians Bridget Jones's Diary which we'll get to in a
bit diehard of course and Bride & Prejudice directed by Gurinder Chadha
who also directed Bend It Like Beckham which you know I love Bride and Prejudice
is Pride and Prejudice meets Bollywood I know right
you've got your stand-ins for Jane Bingley Caroline Lydia the embarrassing
mother the long-suffering father mr. Collins excellent job with him
Charlotte Georgiana and George I mean Johnny Wickham there is also singing and
dancing and that girl from Gilmore Girls and a chase scene through London unpopular
opinion time I like Bride and prejudice that is not an unpopular opinion but our
Lizzie and Darcy stand-ins...eh.
I wanted so much to like them because I like the rest of the film so much except
for the weird there are some really weird transitions and there are a few
montages where well they exist but I'm not sure what their narrative purpose is
I don't know maybe this is just like a Bollywood thing that I am
misunderstanding and someone can let me know in the comments but Lizzie and
Darcy hoo boy Lizzie Bennet like Darcy is a difficult character to get right
because the essence of her character is that she's clever but she's kind but she
takes no crap but she can laugh at herself she's not quite as easy not
quite as soft as Bingley or Jane she has an incisiveness and an edge which can be
difficult to pitch. Jane is naive and sweet and thinks well of everyone
Caroline looks down on everyone Lizzie is somewhere in the middle Jane is naive
caroline is mean Lizzie is witty and the thing is that Lalitha our lizzie stand in
is a great Lizzie when Darcy is not around with the women in her life she is
funny and arch and cheerful and it's when he's there she tends to swing from
banter to active hostility and it's it's a little jarring I'm not gonna argue
that he doesn't deserve it on occasion but it's it's still jarring. the best
example of this is the pool scene which is kind of equivalent to the Lizzie at
Netherfield scenes in the book it's more than one scene caroline is desperate for
Darcy's attention Darcy is busy writing a letter or reading Lizzie's reading so
to get Darcy's attention Caroline drags her up for a walk or into conversation and
on said walk when Darcy declines to join them she demands to know why because is
it not clear he's reading never mind he not being entirely humorless decides to
tease them just a little very dryly and he and Lizzie get into a minor battle of
wits on the subject until she runs into the wall that is his pride "my good
opinion once lost is lost forever. that is a failing indeed. But I cannot laugh at it.." she cheerfully tells
him that he is a grump who hates everyone and he a little bit stunned tells her
that she is willfully misunderstanding him and then if you're in the miniseries
heated gazes ensue Lalitha is going fine with mostly
cheerful teasing but when Darcy says he's thinking of buying the hotel she
flips out and calls him an imperialist look I'm not saying he's faultless here
he's condescending to the max but she's hostile in a way that's anathema to
Lizzie unless you personally hurt her in the beginning Lizzie doesn't give a
flying Fig about Darcy's opinions and so even when he probes her she remains
relatively even-tempered Lalitha not so much in the Lizzie Bennet
diaries Lizzie calls Darcy all manner of names but she doesn't do it to his face
to his face she is reportedly standoffish but she is at least
reasonably polite of course you're gonna have to dial down the politeness if
you're not doing the period drama but still a little bit is always good right
going back to Bride & Prejudice which I do like
Lalitha and Darcy's interactions improve massively once they're actually supposed
to be you know falling in love with each other but at the beginning it's
uncomfortable and it doesn't help that I can't really get on board with the Darcy
either he's just not endearing to me I mean
he's kind of frosty and he clearly fancies Lalitha but I just don't get the sense
of his underlying competence I mean he seems to be a workaholic but he's just
such a dork that I can't help but think dang how do you run your multi-million
dollar company without comedy misunderstandings every five minutes
remember frosty but competent the witty banter in Bride & Prejudice works best
when they're paraphrasing the original rather than lifting chunks of the
dialogue wholesale witty banter is hard which is why Bridget Jones's Diary works
for me as a Pride and Prejudice knockoff because they just cut out the witty
banter entirely and replace it with comedy pratfalls and and swearing and
you know occasional dry wit Bridget Jones is not a Lizzie Bennet but because
she isn't supposed to be a Lizzie Bennet that kind of works for me and I'm
convinced by Bridget's embarrassing mother and resigned father and the
floppy haired foppishness which is Hugh Grant as our Wickham stand-in and of
course actual Colin Firth Mr. Darcying his way around the place because nobody
does stares of repressed British longing quite like Colin Firth but as far as
reasonably faithful modern adaptations of Pride and Prejudice go the Lizzie