Pride, Prejudice and Pan Drops - The guy's eye-view

[f4f3]

Went off to see P&P yesterday afternoon. The last time I was that outnumbered by females was at an HR meeting... They probably don't make them anymore, but I swear that the smell of Pan Drops in the cinema almost choked me. Still, at least it was a better behaved audience than at the Fantastic 4 - only one person in the audience said "Phwoar!" when Keira makes her first appearance, and Susan kicked me so I didn't do it again.

The opening is fairly muddy, and I had high hopes of a down and dirty, realistic rural England being shown, instead of something out of Constable. Unfortunately, with the exception of the odd pig ambling through the hallway, this was more chocolate box than social realism.

Not that I minded - the action (and I use the world advisedly) skipped along merrily enough. Donald Sutherland makes the best of one of Austin's best male roles as Mr Bennett (he doesn't have to say much, doesn't dance, and never dashes his brow in manly torment, Mathew Macfadyen as Darcey is more wooden than Keanu, but when it comes to beeteling a brow he's in a class only the Hulk can touch. Simon Woods as Mr Bingley has a sort of Golden Labrador puppy quality that makes you want to reach out and shake him warmly by the throat, but let's face it, no one has come to see the men.

This is an ensemble piece for women with the assorted (barely)mobile male prop, and as such was wonderfully successful. The sisters range from Stupid and Good (Jane) to Stupid and Annoying (any of the others, except Lizzie).

Judi Dench and Kelly Reilly (as Lady Catherine de Bourg and Caroline Bingley) might as well hold up placards saying "Boo! Hiss!" when they walk on, since they are Clever but Bad.

Jane alone is Clever and Good, and Keira Knightley's perfomance was a huge surprise to me - she was the best thing in this by miles (and some of the other performances are very good indeed, pace my bitchiness above). Roman Osin's camerawork occasionally annoyed me (graininess and multi-focus just seemed to distract from the staging) but either he brings something out from the lass I hadn't seen before or she really is the next Vivien Leigh. Startling stuff.

In summary, go and see it. Not as rich as the six hour BBC adaptation, but a great and silly way of spending two hours, and a film which doesn't insult our intelligences, or if it does, at least manages to do it without blowing anything up.

Oh, and bring your own pan-drops.

Comments

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

- Donald Sutherland I thought wasn't trying very hard at all: his accent in particular was extraordinarily dodgy. But precisely because I don't think this is one of Austen's best male roles (and was very underwritten in the screenplay anyway), he was almost irrelevant.

- Now I like Keanu Reeves, but only because he's pretty. I do recognise a piece of plank when I see one, and he is one. However Matthew Macfadyen I definitely didn't think was wooden. I actually saw his Darcy as tonguetied and socially inept rather than arrogant, which was a nice change from the usual Mills and Boon interpretation of P&P as Cad-Softened-By-Innocent-Young-Woman. And he was just ugly enough to make it entirely credible that he could have been terribly shy and unconfident in company.

- Keira Knightley was DIRE!! Apart from the script giving her a few complicated sentences to say, and a token book prop being waved round a bit at the beginning, you would never know that Elizabeth Bennett was meant to be bookish and intelligent. KK made her a petulant ADHD book/indoor-hating tomboy. At the end, where she tells Donald that she and Darcy are just alike, I found myself absolutely mystified - I couldn't see anything at all in their personalities or relationship history as acted by Macfadyen M and Knightley K that could have given anyone that impression.

- I thought whoever played Charlotte Lucas was excellent. It seemed like she got a lot more to say than Charlotte Lucases usually do - but she was very definitely not stupid and annoying, more a sad and brave realist. But again, I could not understand why she would be friends with Keira Knightley (or the reverse) - she seemed like a more obvious friend for Jane.

- Actually I thought Judi Dench was interesting - at first I thought she was doing a reprise of the Queen in Shakespeare in Love, and would turn out to be crotchety but more good hearted than usual. This turned out not to be the case, but it kept me guessing.

ALSO one of the cleverer things they did, which I have always wondered about, was give a hint that Mary Bennett might fancy Mr Collins. That would seem to be a match made in heaven, from her perspective at least. Of course being a standard issue delusional male (his equivalent today would look in the mirror and see Mel Gibson) he would think he could do better, looks wise....

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Mr Bennett is one of the best male Austin characters BECAUSE he hasn't got much to do. As soon as any of her other males say ANYTHING all credibility goes out the window (this is the guys-eye view, remember?). I don't mind dodgy accents because if they were authentic we wouldn't have a clue what was going on - his American was perfectly understandable.

Well, you saw Darcy as tongue tied, and I just thought he had been chasing too many parked cars. Pompous, teeth grinding, and no fun whatsoever. And as for being softened by a good woman, well, that's exactly why he does his good deeds - not because he thinks he's done anything wrong, just so he can get his end away! (actually that's going to far, isn't it? The business with Jane yes, but the other was pretty noble etc).

Can't agree with your caddishness about the divine Ms K. Granted, there wasn't any great depth there (although depth here would have been about as welcome as lead in a soufflé) but she comes across in this as an absolute star. Maybe not a great actor, but a star.

I thought Ms Dench could have been replaced with any of the ugly sisters or wicked stepmothers from panto - it was a one dimensional turn. If we thought she might have been hiding a heart of gold, it's only because she was in other roles - in this her character was rude, arrogant, and a bit too shouty for my liking.

Totally agree about the Mary/Mr Collins match - although I'd say they deserved each other for being priggish boors with far too high an opinion of themselves (oh, ok, I did feel sorry for her at the ball).

Something I forgot to mention earlier is that our heroes seem to be equipped with GPS, or those estates are actually much smaller than they seem. I mean, you can't go for a pre-dawn stumble in the middle of the marshes without stumbling into your significant other. But I was in such a good mood by that point that I was willing to forgive the coincidence.

What surprises me is that I did really enjoy the film, for all its faults. Maybe it's because I like, but don't love, the book. I wasn't so indulgent of half-arsed adaptions of Eight Million Ways to Die (hated and loathed the Jeff Bridges version) or The Long Goodbye (still haven't forgiven Robert Altman for changing the ending). On the other hand, I loved Weir's Lord of the Rings, and Crowe and Bettany's double act in Master and Commander, despite their physical unsuitability for the parts.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

OK yes I do agree about that - all the roaming around the hills in inclement weather and hours of the night and then amazingly running into the love of your life on multiple occasions. If only it was that easy.


and yes, what's a pan drop?