The story follows the Bennet sisters, a group of fine young women who, with the assistance of an overbearing mother, are in search of appropriate men to marry. Only the father seems immune to the high drama going on in the household as Mother Bennet strategizes over how to get her brood married off.
Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) is the defiant one of the bunch, struggling against class restrictions and only wanting to marry for love. She meets up with the taciturn Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen) and is both repulsed and attracted to the wealthy gentleman. As the two are forced together in various social situations, Darcy soon wises up to the fact he’s smitten with the fair Elizabeth. Meanwhile Elizabeth rejects a foppish suitor, becomes enamored with Darcy’s enemy, and watches her sisters fall in and out of love before ultimately giving into the fact she and Darcy are meant for one another.
The cinematography is outstanding and you’d have a hard time naming a film released in 2005 with better costume and set designs. But in this case the old saying ‘beauty is only skin deep’ definitely applies as there’s simply nothing appealing below the film’s skillfully designed surface.
Positive marks do go to the filmmaker for casting actors closer in age to the characters in the book than usually found in adaptations of Jane Austen’s classic novel. A handsome and talented group, the cast of “Pride and Prejudice” do justice to the piece in parts, but the film fails to connect with its audience. There’s an emotional pull to the story that’s completely missing from Wright’s film. It’s all too cold and distant, as if the entire production was taking its cue from the brooding character of Darcy.
The most engaging performances of the cast were turned in by the film’s older generation of actors: Donald Sutherland, Dame Judi Dench and Brenda Blethyn. The younger group headlined by Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen never came close to achieving the same caliber of performances as their more senior co-stars. I never felt drawn in by Knightley’s Elizabeth and Macfadyen as Darcy left me cold. Darcy’s supposed to be standoffish – that’s how Austen wrote the character – yet Macfadyen plays him so completely dour that he’s rendered uninteresting. He’s so unengaged in what’s going on that Elizabeth’s attraction to the man is unexplainable.
The actresses cast as Elizabeth’s sisters, including the lovely Rosamund Pike and Jena Malone, just simply aren’t convincing as siblings. None of the women cast as sisters look anything alike and their interactions never sell the bond of sisterhood.
As strange as it may sound, I actually preferred the Bollywood/Hollywood mix of “Bride and Prejudice” more than this slick yet stale adaptation of Austen’s book. At least writer/director Gurinder Chadha’s colorful and engaging take on the novel was something completely different from the same old rehashed, warmed-over story. This “Pride and Prejudice” is a flat, tired regurgitation that’s been done better many, many times before.
GRADE: C
"Pride and Prejudice" was directed by Joe Wright and is rated PG for some mild thematic elements.
