Pride and Prejudice has been my favorite book since I was eleven years old, and I've seen every other adaptation of it--even taken a class on Romantic Comedy, in which P&P was included. However, I was determined to take this version on its own merits and try not to compare it to the other versions. Those don't matter as much as its trueness to the book in spirit and content.
This is what I told myself when I put the DVD in. During the first scene, my hopes were dashed--Mary brings the news of Bingley? They just cut out the great opening banter between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet! Really, it's all downhill from here.
The greatest complaint is that the people behind this movie completely sucked the life out of the story. This is a comedy of manners, people, not solely a love story. It's about human character, and here, the characters have no life at all. Look at Mr. Darcy: Aie! He looks like a walking corpse with a burr up his you know what. It seemed as if every line was painful to utter and that he was bored to death. Elizabeth has altogether no wit and shows a strange contradiction regarding her family: She whines and pleads with Jane to get better faster so she can go home! What!?!? Whining, selfish creature! She then comments with a sign of satisfaction how good it is to be home, and coddles her mother too! Agony. Because of these flaws in writing/acting, the ending is improbable, even laughably ridiculous.
Sorry, did the casting director think that chap playing Wickham was a hottie? Youch.
Did anyone notice how awful all of the grand houses looked? I mean, since Darcy has ten thousand pounds a year (that's a LOT of money) he could at least have the stone on Pemberley cleaned up a bit. It was all stained and icky. *shudder*
If I detailed everything that was wrong with this, I'd be here for hours. I know many of you love it dearly, but I'm sorry, I see nothing to love. I see a dried-out husk of an adaptation of the most brilliant book ever.
This is what I told myself when I put the DVD in. During the first scene, my hopes were dashed--Mary brings the news of Bingley? They just cut out the great opening banter between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet! Really, it's all downhill from here.
The greatest complaint is that the people behind this movie completely sucked the life out of the story. This is a comedy of manners, people, not solely a love story. It's about human character, and here, the characters have no life at all. Look at Mr. Darcy: Aie! He looks like a walking corpse with a burr up his you know what. It seemed as if every line was painful to utter and that he was bored to death. Elizabeth has altogether no wit and shows a strange contradiction regarding her family: She whines and pleads with Jane to get better faster so she can go home! What!?!? Whining, selfish creature! She then comments with a sign of satisfaction how good it is to be home, and coddles her mother too! Agony. Because of these flaws in writing/acting, the ending is improbable, even laughably ridiculous.
Sorry, did the casting director think that chap playing Wickham was a hottie? Youch.
Did anyone notice how awful all of the grand houses looked? I mean, since Darcy has ten thousand pounds a year (that's a LOT of money) he could at least have the stone on Pemberley cleaned up a bit. It was all stained and icky. *shudder*
If I detailed everything that was wrong with this, I'd be here for hours. I know many of you love it dearly, but I'm sorry, I see nothing to love. I see a dried-out husk of an adaptation of the most brilliant book ever.