Hello my beautiful watchers and welcome back to lost in adaptation, the review show dedicated
to comparing film adaptations of books to said books to see how loyally they recreated
the original plot and themes.
A few months ago I covered the BBC TV mini series adaptation of Pride and Prejudice by
Jane Austen.
It was the first episode that I did with my new co producer Kate aka that movie chick
and I proclaimed that when she hit the 20,000 subscribers milestone we would cover the 2005
movie adaptation as well.
She’s currently just shy off 22 thousand which is probably a poor reflection of the
speed at which I keep my promises...
Anyway if you’ve not checked out her channel you really should, she uses her almost terrifyingly
comprehensive knowledge of movie and TV trivia to do breakdowns of female lead dramas and
cancelled tv shows.
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Right uhh, Ms Austen hasn’t been up to much since the last time I talked about her many
achievements so for a full bio you can avail yourself of my preceding video.
The short version is she, like all the best things in this world, was British.
She’s also considered an extraordinarily influential writer, ahead of her time, frustratingly
mistreated in her profession because of her gender and incredibly good at writing the
most incredible burns disguised as polite conversation.
Pride and Prejudice, the 2nd of 6 best selling books of hers was published in 1813.
It was reasonably well received at the time, and even better when it was republished about
50 years after the author's death.
It’s a very satisfying book to read, though as Charlotte Bronte famously critiqued using
such wonderfully colorful words; somewhat hyper focused on the squeaky clean limited
world view of the upper class characters.
The adaptation we’re having a gander at today took the form of a 2005 film directed
by Joe Wright, another Englishman with a reasonable but not world shattering amount of credits
to his name.
Judging it just as a film, my first observation is its bloody gorgeous.
Lots of lovely landscape shots and I enjoyed the warm colour tone you sadly don’t see
as much in films at the moment.
A young Keira Knightley starred in the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet with Matthew Macfadyen
in the role of Mr Darcy, her unexpected soulmate.
I was also pleasantly surprised to see President Snow himself Donald Sutherland in the role
of Mr Bennet.
I also can’t overstate the glee I felt upon discovering that the legendary Dame Judy Deuteronomy
was playing Lady Catherine.
Whats up girl.
Amusingly, according to Knightley she and Wright actually made a pretty terrible first
impression on each other but, against all expectations became quite fond of each other
over time until they were very close, a development eerily similar to the relationship between
Elizabeth and Darcy.
I don’t know if I’m the only one who felt this but something about the way Wright directed
his actors to speak their lines really brought a stage performance to my mind as opposed
to a film.
I guess it could have been the consistently fast delivery and hyper enunciation perhaps.
Her brother will be dining out.
Dining out?
Can I take the carriage?
Well let me see that.
It is too far to walk, mama!
This is unaccountable of him dining out indeed- Mama!
A carriage for Jane?
Lets face it Wright had a hard task ahead of him with this adaptation.
World popular books are always dangerous ground to tread because their fan bases tend to have
pretty intense opinions about what should or should not be included.
To make matters worse he wasn’t familiar with the book until he got the job AND he
had the immensely book accurate 1995 mini series to contend with which he apparently
intentionally avoided watching to avoid being influenced by it.
Let’s see how well he did.
Same
The Bennet family, consisting of Mr B, Mrs B and their 5 daughters Jane, Elizabeth, Mary,
Catherine and Lydia are all excited and whatnot to hear that a local manor is being rented
by a wealthy young man named Mr Bingley because as a single man in possession of a good fortune
they assume its universally acknowledged that he must be in must be in want of a wife and
you never know he might pick one of them.
They meet at a ball and he and Jane do appear to hit it off rather well, though the mood
is brought down somewhat by his very rich but very very grumpy friend Mr Darcy who manages
to offend everyone involved.
Jane is encouraged to visit Bingley by her somewhat overbearing mother but gets caught
in heavy rain and falls ill, forcing her to stay at his gaf for a bit.
Lizzy hikes there to take care of her sister and gets into a mean girls confrontation with
Bingley’s sister and a sass off with Darcy.
You’ll be pleased to hear the line about checking out their butts while they walk is
included.
It’s just not Mr Darcy without those weird moments where you're not sure if he’s being
grumpy or horny.
Lieutenant Wickham of the British Militia turning up and filling Elizabeth's head with
foul lies about Darcy being a shit to him in the past, BAD Wickham.
Bah!
Mr Collins coming round for a visit, who is the closest living male relative to Mr B and
is set to inherit all his stuff when he dies.
Encouraged by her mother he makes a proposal of marriage to Elizabeth, which is thoroughly
rejected.
Mrs Bennet tries to brow beat her daughter into accepting but her husband unexpectedly
takes Elizabeth’s side.
In an unexpected turn of events, Bingley suddenly buggers off to London with no return plans.
Jane goes after him to see what's up with that and Elizabeth later discovers that the
up with that is Mr Darcy talked him into it like a BUTT.
It turns out that Elizabeth’s friend Charlotte is more amenable to Collins so he takes her
as his backup bride.
Once they’ve been married for a bit Lizzy comes to visit them, and is invited to meet
his patron, Lady Catherine, who turns out to be Mr Darcy’s aunt, leading to another
awkward exchange of sass.
Shortly later big D pulls a complete 180 on Lizzy and confesses undying love for her.
Due to thinking he’d screwed over both Wickham and Jane she tells him to bugger off, then
feels kind of bad about it when he delivers her a letter explaining that Wickham was actually
the villain of their backstory and he had mistakenly thought Jane wasn’t interested
in his BFF so had tried to save him some heartbreak.
Lizzy goes to stay with her aunt and uncle, who take her on a tour of Derbyshire (go rams)
and of course they end up at Darcy's house resulting in awkward encounter number three.
I…
Hahaha sorry, sorry.
Does every adaptation of this book have to have someone jumping up into the shot like
an upper class ninja?
While she’s there she finds out Wickham has run off with her youngest sister Lydia,
presumably just to love her and leave her like a massive asshole, though fortunately
they eventually return to her family as a married couple, leaving her and her family’s
honor intact.
Through Lydia being a blabbermouth Elizabeth deduces that D to the arcy tracked them down
and bribed Wickham into doing the right thing.
On top of that he also owns up to being an idiot to Bingley and successfully talks him
into coming back and making up with Jane.
Shortly later Lady Catherine shows up, having heard an incorrect rumour that Lizzy and big
D dog are engaged.
Though temporarily relieved to hear that they aren't, she’s enraged that Elizabeth won’t
promise to never to be, which gives Darcy new hope that she’s changed her mind, which
she confirms she has and everyone is happy now except for Catherine but we don’t talk
about her.
Changed
The time period seems to have been fiddled with a tad.
Taking it from the original 1813 to 1790.
Wright has cited multiple reasons for this.
The first is he believed that post French revolution England with its very nervous,
guillotine eyeing aristocrats would make an interesting backdrop for the film, as it adds
a level of depth to Darcy and Bingley.
The second is he really didn’t like the empire silhouette, a style of clothing that
was popular in the Regency Era.
That's right, he changed the setting of the story because “guuuurl, that dress isn’t
doing you any favours”.
Interestingly Wright seems to have taken Bronte’s feedback to heart, and his solution to the
excessively clean narrow world setting was to not only change the time period, but to
also tone down the Bennet family’s wealth to the point that while they’re clearly
not starving, they don’t even appear to be bottom tier aristocrats or even land owners.
They live in a much smaller house located in a rural village which they travel into
themselves to conduct their business.
Wright called it the muddy hem version.
Though off book I can’t pretend my modern sensibilities hated this change.
I made mention in my other review that it was mildly off putting that landed gentry
such as the Bennets, with their medium sized estate and live-in servant were constantly
referred to as the poor family with little standing in the book.
In the 21st century I dare say these struggles of the lower part of the 1% hold less appeal
to the average watcher.
Word is the first draft of the script, witten by Deborah Moggach was a lot more in keeping
with the original novel, however when Wright joined the project, there was a serious push
to make the film more accessible to new audiences which might not be familiar with Austen's
work.
To this end there's a subtle shift in the Bennet family dynamic.
It would be unfair to call them dysfunctional in the book, but their early 19th century
formalities could come off as slightly cold at times.
The film depicts them as a lot more openly affectionate and supportive of each other.
Wright even had the actors live together for a month during rehearsals to enhance this
feeling of family togetherness.
For better or worse, what he seems to have done, in my opinion, is transplant a more
modern family dynamic onto this late 18th century family.
Moving onto specific character comparisons, I’ve praised Elizabeth in the past for being
a sass queen, and this version of her actually manages to come off as even more so.
I always wish to give them as unstudied an air..as possible.
Oh believe me no one would suspect your manners to be rehearsed.
(Lydia chokes on laughter)
Possibly because, like with the family as a whole, they transplanted some more modernised
behaviour onto her.
That said I think that Knightley, a lifelong fan of the book, still embodied the essence
of the character which might be partly because she’s expressed an exceptionally keen understanding
of the difficulties inherent in film adaptations of reader stand-in characters.
Yeah it was terrifying and I think you know particularly with books like that but particularly
Pride and Prejudice you know people who love it see themselves as Elizabeth Bennet.
You know, um so..you are never going to be the image that they have of Elizabeth Bennet
because it will be them.
Bingley’s awkwardness and excited innocent puppy nature is played up to the max in this.
You can virtually feel the actor channeling his inner Hugh Grant.
Its a pleasure.
No.
I mean its, sorry, not a pleasure that she’s ill.
Of course not.
Its a pleasure that she’s here..being ill..um..
Darcy, while still accurately gloomy and snarky, is perhaps a bit more noticeably sympathetic
earlier on.
His first marriage proposal, an awkward, blustering, arrogant affair in the book seems way more
earnest in this version, making Lizzie’s harsh response seem a little uncalled for.
It's not all good news for him though.
A side effect of making the Bennets less cold and or wannabe pompous is his reasoning for
thinking that Jane wasn't really interested in his boy Bingley now seems a little shaky.
Jane is clearly as openly smitten with him as he is for her.
This version of Mr Bennet is the one exception to the general warming of the family.
He forgoes the book original’s and the 1995’s version’s quirkiness, instead coming off
as kind of muted and disinterested throughout almost the entire film.
Even when he’s saving Elizabeth from her forced marriage he doesn't seem that invested.
The eventual pay off for this is when he finally expresses genuine emotion at Lizzie’s happiness
with Darcy at the end, giving away that he really does care about his children a great
deal.
It's a legitimate way to present the character even if it’s not very true to his origins.
Just like in the miniseries, Mrs Bennet can come off as an antagonistic character due
to her single minded obsession with marrying off her daughters to any moderately wealthy
man who will take them.
In fact she actually seems worse in this version because the reveal of just how screwed the
girls without husbands will be once their father dies is left until quite a way into
the story and without it her motivations are easy to assign to pure social ladder climbing
and a controlling nature.
However this is still probably one of the more sympathetic versions of her I’ve seen
because of the now much brought up caring family dynamic.
You see some humanizing moments of genuine conversation and affection with her daughters
as they offer each other support.
Getting into minor things, there's a recurring joke in the film that every time there's a
private conversation going on, the entire Bennet family is listening at the door.
While Mr Collins is still every bit the annoying arsehile that he was in the book, I have to
admit I did feel a slight pang of sympathy when everyone burst in and started laughing
at his humiliating rejection.
They added a scene of Darcy helping a very nervous Bingley rehearse his proposal and
gods damn it is adorbs.
The ending to this film is something of a sore point for die hard Austen fans.
The book summarized the marriages and happy lives of the main cast, but that would be
difficult to pull off in a visual medium.
However few people were convinced that ripping off the ending to Sixteen Candles was the
next best option.
LEFT OUT
Despite the radically reduced run time available to a film, It's hard to pin down anything
in particular here.
Very minor characters like Mr. and Mrs. Hunt, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, and Lady and Maria
Lucas made no appearance but I can’t claim they were crazy essential to the story.
A lot of the plot condensing took the form of shaving off a good deal of every scene,
so the main plot remains in a skeletal but recognisable form.
A good example is Wickham’s absconsion from the military with Lydia.
It’s so condensed it seems almost like it was resolved as soon as it started and you
don’t get the same sense of deep despair that fell over the family in the book due
to the scene just not having time to breathe.
The exception to this general rule is the romance between Elizabeth and Darcy, which
was intentionally focused on over any other theme or subplot of the book, leaving it relatively
unscathed.
In keeping with his desire to appeal to a wider audience Wright cut a lot of classic
lines from the book as he felt the language would sound too unnatural and stilted.
Final thoughts
All in all, I would probably describe this as pretty accurate to the core of the story
but hella condensed.
It feels weird to call something that's actually set further in the past than the original
“modernised” but that's the only way I can describe the feel of these characters.
I will say this, whether or not you approve of Wright's desire to make Pride and Prejudice
more appealing to a younger audience, I don’t think anyone can deny the success of his attempt.
The film performed well and is often credited as being people's first introduction to Jane
Austen’s books and that's pretty cool.
I’d personally give this adaptation a tentative thumbs up, but I do sympathise with Jane Austen
fans who felt too many liberties were taken.
Just before I wrap up, I know you’re curious about how it stacks up to the mini series.
Well the series probably takes the win for book accuracy just because it had so much
more run time to work with, I think their Mr Bennet was a better interpretation and
Matthew Macfadyen just can’t hold a candle to Colin Firth when it comes to pulling off
grumpy sexy.
However I was very charmed by Knightley’s Elizabeth and most of the cast in the film
are a combination of more likeable and more memorable.
All that said…
The film does not have a wet shirted Darcy scene so it's an automatic loss sorry.
Thank you for joining me, my beautiful watchers.
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Please take care of yourselves out there in these troubled times, and I will hopefully
see you soon.
Neige old boy, play that sexy Darcy song again and give it some pizazz.
(humming to himself) Please take care of yourselves out there in
these troubled times and I will hopefully see you next time.
Time twice?
Time Travel!
Just before I-get out me hair.
My face hair.
I just want to look absolutely gorgeous without having ym sight impeded.
Is that too much to ask?