I felt it was time for another Pride and Prejudice adaptation.
Specifically, the 2005 version which my husband affectionately refers to as Grime and Prejudice.
Because far from the perfect mannerly composure which tends to be the rule rather than the
exception for the 1995 TV miniseries, this one is all grime all the time. The Bennets
are noticeably un-made-up, and there's rain, and mud, and wind, and dirt, and everybody
is noticeably less well-fed.
Though I am pretty sure that’s more to do with mid 2000s preferences on what's considered
attractive rather than a deliberate choice for authenticity. After all, they all still
have perfect teeth.
The truncated plot goeth thusly: the five Bennet sisters are thus far unmarried, Mr
Bingley has just moved into the neighbourhood, and he is ginger and handsome and ADORKABLE,
he loves Jane already but his friend Darcy, who is an awkward awkward turtle who hates
people, and his sister Caroline both take agin the Bennet family because they’re an
improper lot.
Jane and Lizzie excepted.
Darcy falls in love with Lizzie, the Mr Wickham and Mr Collins subplots continue unabated,
and generally the movie tries to cut out as many extraneous characters as possible in
order to give full welly to the Bennet family dynamic and, naturally, Darcy and Lizzie and
their TOTES HOT ERMERGERSH not-quite-yet-a-romance. It should be pointed out that the American
version has a post-marriage scene with, like, kissing and stuff. The UK version does not
have this because, apparently we, you know, understood that it was kind of implied that
there would be kissing later.
Still, it's a very sweet scene and I'm kind of sad that they left it out.
I...sometimes have a hard time picking a topic when it comes to discussing media I like on
this show, but that point about the kissing bears some examination.
Pride and Prejudice 2005 is a very accessible period film. In the book they don't need to
be terribly explicit about the consequences of things because obviously Austen was writing
a contemporary romance. But in the film they tend to spell things out a little more, so that people
who aren't familiar with Regency social mores can, you know, keep up.
There is a significant amount of dialogue which is lifted straight from the book, but
the dialogue which they have written themselves for the screenplay is very good and very authentic:
it feels like something Austen would have written.
And that of course allows them to truncate a lot of the information and to be a little
more explicit when necessary.
See for example Charlotte's speech to Lizzie about getting married to Mr Collins.
The aesthetic of the movie...ugh, so great.
They aren't perfectly made up in the no-makeup style and their hair is a relative mess. Because
in the days before hairspray there is only so much rag curling can do against the vagaries
of the British weather, you know?
I'm no particular fan of making something gritty and dark for the sake of it, or indeed
grubby for that matter, but in this case I think it really works.
That slightly inadequate very yellow-cast candlelit ballroom...indeed, in Regency England
you would definitely want to choose something that looked good under strong yellow light
because that was what it was going to be!
And those excellent costumes...and my personal favourite: Lizzie on her way to Netherfield.
In the 95 version you get a closeup of Lizzie’s ruined petticoat, which is indeed six inches
deep in mud, and her boots are probably soaked through, but the rest of her looks perfectly
composed at all times, and all of the characters have got that made-for-TV sheen. Which is
hardly surprising, really.
Whereas when Keira Knightley waltzes in after a three mile walk through storm-washed fields
with her hair a mess and her skirt really grubby? When Caroline says she looks positively
medieval, I believe it because yeah, she really does.
This is not to denigrate the 95 version, by the way. I still really like it, and one like
two different adaptations of a thing, for different reasons without, you know, needing
to have a favourite. But comparison is fun.
They feel very...real.
All of them, especially when we are with the Bennet family on their own, feel like real
people, feel like people you know, even though they’re supposedly living several hundred
years ago. They talk over each other. They have a full-on panic when Mr Bingley turns
up unexpectedly. They FEEL kind of wild and disreputable, especially Mrs Bennet and the
two youngest sisters who get drunk and make spectacles of themselves at parties.
And then need hangover cures the next morning.
While the 1995 version tended to hint at sexy sexy times, it had five whole hours to build
up the relationship between Lizzie and Darcy, and so it was a much slower burn, rather like
the book, in fact. This one, in true truncated feature film style, is just...Hello, My Name
is Mr Darcy. Is it hot in here or is it just our Smouldering Sexual Tension?
A very deliberate example of this is when he takes her bare hand to help her into the
carriage after she's come to visit her sister. Regency England: NO TOUCHY.
She looks at him like, WHAT...and when he walks away there's this close up of his hand,
like he's been electrocuted or something.
And then of course there's the ballroom scene where they're dancing and then suddenly EVERYONE
ELSE IN THE ROOM DISAPPEARS BECAUSE of the intensity of their focus on each another.
This is how you do courtly romance and sexual tension and forbidden love which our respective
positions make impossible.
Basically what I'm saying is Pride and Prejudice 2005 is really good and I liked it a lot and
you should try watching it!
I liked it the first time I saw it, but It took me a couple of goes to REALLY warm up
to it because the first time I saw it I was 19 and did not quite grasp the fact that you
can like two different adaptations without having to have a favourite or compare one
unfavourably to the other.
Yeah, I was such a grown up.
But I do love this version so much. Mary’s proto-goth getup and crush on Mr Collins.
Wickham, who looks oddly like Orlando Bloom, anyone else see that? The messy public ball,
the drunken private ball. Mrs Bennet and her care for her daughters, which, yes, manifests
as a preoccupation with marriage but given her situation in life is not exactly surprising,
as I've said before.
Bingley, and Jane, and they are SO ADORABLE WHYYYY. And of course, Lizzie and Darcy, who
are...just...wonderful.
Try it out. Maybe. I think book purists will probably hate it, because it does take a lot
of liberties with the actual text. But I think it grasps the key points of the story and
puts them across very well. Besides the things which make a good book are not the same as
what makes a good miniseries which are not the same as what makes a good film. And this
is a good feature film. If nothing else, it brought Period-Era Bennets to life in a new
way for me. And made me strongly consider a Keira Knightley-esque fringe.
OK, so the Keira Knightley-esque fringe turned out to be a terrible idea for me, but the
rest worked out pretty well, so I am satisfied.
Ok, that's everything for this episode, so if you like the show and you'd like to support
it, and you're on YouTube, you can go up here for a link which will take you to patreon.com/jillbearup,
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to see more episodes which will probably contain one of the following:
- Star Wars - period drama
- books - Disney.
See you next time!