a review by Jeffrey Overstreet
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Director – Joe Wright.
Writer – Deborah Moggach, based on the novel by Jane Austen.
Director of photography, Roman Osin.
Editor – Paul Tothill.
Music by Dario Marianelli.
Production designer, Sarah Greenwood.
Produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Paul Webster.
Released by Focus Features.
128 minutes. Rated PG for adult themes.
STARRING: Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Bennet), Matthew Macfadyen (Mr. Darcy), Brenda Blethyn (Mrs. Bennet), Donald Sutherland (Mr. Bennet), Tom Hollander (Mr. Collins), Rosamund Pike (Jane Bennet), Jena Malone (Lydia Bennet), Talulah Riley (Mary Bennet), Carey Mulligan (Kitty Bennet) and Judi Dench (Lady Catherine de Bourg).
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If you’re like me, you reached a state of “Jane Austen Adaptation Overload” a few years back.
So many of her stories have become elaborate, award-worthy films that they tend to blur in the mind. Which one had Kate Winslet? Was it Sense and Sensibility or Emma? Who was in more than one, Gwyneth Paltrow or Emma Thompson? Neither? Really? Didn’t Ang Lee direct one of them? Was it Persuasion or Mansfield Park… no, wait, it was…
The day that the preview for Joe Wright’s rendition of Pride and Prejudice arrived onscreen, there was a collective groan in the audience. Here we go again. And to make matters worse, many who would normally cheer for more cringed instead. Why? Because they already love the five-hour BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, the series that endeared actor Colin Firth to women everywhere and guaranteed him a long career as a romantic hero for years to come. (He even played the “Mr. Darcy” part all over again in Bridget Jones’s Diary.)
So it is with surprise and great pleasure that I’m here to announce that Joe Wright turns out to be a director with energy, talent, and a flair for graceful camerawork. His adaptation of Pride and Prejudice abbreviates and revises the famous story of the Bennet girls impressively. And the film is a rush of emotion, humor, and eloquent acting. While it’s not as poetic as Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, as understated as Roger Michell’s Persuasion, or as fierce and gutsy as Patricia Rozema’s Mansfield Park, it is more complex and rewarding than Douglas McGrath’s whimsical Emma, and, boasting significant strengths all its own, it’s one of the best films of 2005.
If you’re not familiar with the story of the Bennet sisters, you should be. Elizabeth Bennet (played here by rising star Keira Knightley) is the second-to-eldest of several young ladies being groomed for marriage by their jittery, nerve-wracked mother (Brenda Blethyn.) Mr. Bennet (Donald Sutherland) tries to stay out of these affairs, admiring his girls from a quiet distance, especially the bookish, brainy Elizabeth.
When a glorious ball is hosted by the neighbors, the girls get dizzy with the possibility of meeting handsome men, and sure enough, the eldest, Jane (the radiant Rosamund Pike), is charmed by an admirable young bachelor unfortunately named Bingley (Simon Woods). But there are, of course, forces that would try to separate them because of Jane’s “humble origins.”
Outwardly less eager for a man, Elizabeth is, of course, quickly besotted with one gentleman in particular–a sour-faced fellow named Darcy (Matthew McFadyen, making an impressive jump to the top ranks of leading men here.) They are quickly involved in contentious banter that she finds sexy, while he seems thunderstruck to discover that he might actually be vulnerable to feelings of desire. Meanwhile, an exasperating and egomaniacal clergyman named Collins (Tom Hollander of Gosford Park, in his most comical and interesting role to date) becomes the interfering suitor attempting to corner poor Elizabeth and pummel her into accepting his proposals.
And so we proceed into Austen’s famous method of confusing her heroes and heroines through misunderstandings, prolonging their unions with the meddling of wicked and selfish villains, and planting a few mysteries and surprises along the path. The author’s art is best manifested here in breathtaking, dizzying ballroom dances that contain conversations as choreographed as the dance itself.
If I have one serious complaint, it relates to the film’s main attraction. It’s not her fault she’s beautiful, but Keira Knightley’s makeup artists seem to have immediately surrendered the idea of making her “plain,” which is her distinguishing characteristic in the book. No matter how hard the rain and the wrongdoing pound on her, Knightley’s makeup is always picture-perfect, and that interferes with an otherwise winning performance. She seems ready at any time to turn to the camera, hold up some kind of moisturizer or eyeliner, and seductively tell us what brand to buy.
Heck, I’d probably run out and buy some of that moisturizer myself if she told me to! But such a meticulously polished visage seems out of place in this world, as if Elizabeth’s true talent is to be camera-ready no matter what the circumstances.
Nevertheless, Knightley won me over. She’s got the gumption of young Winona Ryder, and she does that romantic hesitancy oh so well … that blissful expression that makes it painfully obvious to anyone watching that Elizabeth is swooning every time she looks at Mr. Darcy. Knightley’s a pleasure to watch at all times, and a strong enough actress to carry the movie, in spite of the strengths she hasn’t yet developed. (And isn’t it refreshing to have a period piece in which the heroine doesn’t succeed because of overpowering cleavage?)
Having praised Knightley, I must praise the actress playing her older sister, Rosamund Pike, even more highly. With very few lines, Pike almost steals Pride and Prejudice from Keira Knightley.
For one thing, she isn’t overly made up to look like a supermodel. She remains a natural beauty, and one with a complicated interior life. Pike handles her big scenes beautifully, considering she has very few lines to deliver. I wished the film had been another 30 minutes longer to give us more time with her character. I hope other directors will notice her and cast her in the lead of something as worthwhile as this. Krzysztof Kieslowski, should he find out about her, may just smash his way out of the grave in order to devote a movie to celebrating her beauty the way he did with Juliette Binoche and Irène Jacob. (I note with a shudder that her other 2005 appearance is in Doom. What a waste.) There’s something bewitchingly broken about her face… something that speaks of experience, deep thought, and pain, which makes her eventual joy all the more exciting. Knightley, for all of her tough talk, doesn’t yet have the face of someone who’s been through things.
Speaking of strong performances, Matthew MacFadyen’s remarkable as Mr. Darcy. He’s probably not going to replace Colin Firth as the ultimate Darcy in the hearts of the book’s fans, but he’s strong enough here to win himself a promising future of romantic roles. (He was in The Reckoning, but didn’t have much chance to make an impression there.)
And Donald Sutherland, playing a very different Mr. Bennet than the book gives us, is also very fine as an emotional, weary old man who dearly loves his smartest, boldest daughter.
Joe Wright’s direction is invigorating. Who is this guy? Give him another good script! He keeps the camera moving gracefully about these crowded ballrooms and elaborate houses. I wanted to rewind certain scenes just to marvel at how effortlessly the camera glides from room to room, through windows, and across the glorious countryside. He uses close-ups in ways that remind me of Peter Jackson, and that gives us an intimate knowledge of these characters so that we care about them, whereas many other period pieces of this sort keep us at arms’ length.
My favorite of his many surprising segues and decisions came when Knightley is sitting in a swing and slowly turning, winding up the ropes and then twirling. We see through her eyes as the property around her rushes past. Every time she turns, time has passed, the seasons change, and at last we arrive in a new chapter. Simple, inventive, and beautifully executed.
Dario Marianelli’s score, reminiscent of Michael Nyman’s music for The Piano, is buoyant and beautiful, carrying us deliriously from one predictable situation to the next, so that we don’t care that the formula is familiar… we’re just enjoying the rush.
If I fault anything else in the film beyond Knightley’s luminescence, I would have asked Wright to tone down Brenda Blethyn’s typically hysterical performance. She’s just too comical and exaggerated here, out of balance with everything else. I might have cast someone else in the role of the hyperactive, giggling girl; Jena Malone is too intelligent an actress to pass for this total idiot. And Judi Dench’s one-note wickedness seems like a showy grab for an Oscar nomination; Dench’s fame in roles such as these make her a bit of a distraction here. Why not surprise us with someone new?
This territory has been explored so many times before that it’s becoming hard to review such a film fairly. It has a “been-there, done that” quality to it. Thus, all the more reason to praise Wright for making such familiar stuff seem fresh and engaging.
Furthermore, we should rejoice that 2005 finally has a holiday-season release that dares to be profound. The virtues of Elizabeth and Darcy run counter to almost every love story at the multiplex. They aren’t counting the moments until they tumble in the sheets–they’re waiting for another chance to wrestle with each other’s wits. They aren’t impressing each other with flourishes of ego or brash attacks on their competitors–they’re amazing each other with humility, servitude, courtesy, and generosity. They’re real heroes.
I’d gladly see this film again, and take friends and family along. How long has it been since I’ve said that about a movie?