A decade after Ang Lee’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility had shown that novels of Jane Austen can serve as basis for commercially successful and critically acclaimed films, trend continued. One of such films and arguably the most ambitious, is Pride & Prejudice, 2005 feature directorial debut of Joe Wright.
The reason for this is only partially due to the deep respect the author enjoys among the Hollywood establishment, as well as the popularity her works have among holders of degrees in English literature. Hollywood producers, plagued by a creative crisis, have found in Jane Austen's works a source of stories that their screenwriters are unable to provide. This is especially true for the romantic comedy genre, whose plots often show that, no matter how much their creators try to modernize them, their narrative core draws from several novels from the early 19th century.
The film is based on eponymous 1813 book, the most popular of all Austen's novels, which recently had, through the years, inspired various films with varying degree of connection with it, many of them being romantic comedies. One of the best known, made only four years earlier, is modern-day retelling of Austen’s story in Bridget Jones’s Diary, which was followed by Pride & Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy in 2003 and Bollywood-style Bride and Prejudice in 2004.
Hollywood, on the other hand, has shied away from from more direct and faithful adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. This was partly because in 1995, the BBC produced an extremely acclaimed five-hour miniseries starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, leading many to believe that any film would be inferior to it simply because the richness of Austen's text cannot be easily compressed into a feature film format. Finally, this thankless task was taken on by the esteemed English writer Deborah Moggach, who was occasionally assisted by Emma Thompson, an Oscar winner for the adaptation of Sense and Sensibility" The result of these efforts is a lavish and highly praised film by Joe Wright.
The film's plot is set in the aristocratic circles of rural England at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century. The Bennet family is a noble family that has gradually fallen into poverty, and whose matriarch, Mrs. Bennet (played by Brneda Blethyn), desperately seeks to marry off her five daughters to the wealthiest suitors possible. Opportunities for this arise at local balls, where the eldest daughter Jane (played by Rosamund Pike) will take an interest in the wealthy aristocrat Mr. Bingley (played by Keith Woods). The encounter between Jane's younger sister Elizabeth (played by Keira Knightley) and Mr. Darcy (played by Matthew McFadyen) will not go as well—Jane, who prides herself on her ability to assess character, finds Darcy cold and unworthy of her feelings. However, after a series of romantic, marital, and economic complications, Elizabeth and Darcy will realise they are indeed made for each other.
The new version of Pride and Prejudice has received well-deserved praise for the significant effort in set design and costumes invested in reconstructing rural England from more than two centuries ago. Dario Marianelli also deserves accolades for the piano music score that perfectly match the film's atmosphere. Similarly, a small army of formidable British actors who know how to play such roles with their eyes closed also deserves recognition. Their colleagues from across the Atlantic, such as Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennet and Jena Malone as Elizabeth’s sister Lydia, also seize the opportunity to prove to the world that they can handle the British accent.
Renowned television director Joe Wright also deserves praise for handling his feature film debut quite well. However, at times it seems that Pride and Prejudice did not represent the best compromise between the miniseries and feature film, and that at times is too stretched, while certain subplots are not used to their fullest potential.
Nevertheless, these criticisms will not mean much to all lovers of Austen's book—which recently ranked second in a BBC poll on popularity, behind The Lord of the Rings—and the same can be said for the general audience, whose need for a quality film will be satisfied by this Hollywood adaptation of a literary classic
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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