Better In Your Head?--PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

 

Spoiler Alert: you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

THE BOOK-Written by Jane Austen, released 1813

THE MOVIE(S)-Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, written by Aldous Huxley* & Jane Murfin, released 1940

Directed by Joe Wright, written by Deborah Moggach, released 2005

THE STORY-Happiness is born in the head, but lives in the heart. 

MIND THE GAP-Without fear of reprisal, I declare: I'm just here for Elizabeth Bennet. Mary's too relatable for safe sustained exposure, Jane's too rosy and cozy, Catherine goes by "Kitty" (if that don't say all) and Lydia is her mother's favorite, and thus too non-relatable for safe sustained exposure.

But Elizabeth! Line-toer extraordinaire, call-out queen supreme. None of her positive qualities (wit, intelligence, vivacity) define her personality, and none of her negative qualities (pride, youthful assumption of omniscience, haste to treat rumor as fact) signal a terminal condition. The cake is well and truly hers. One chapter she's striking feminist blows, next chapter she's swooning over a man for whom she'd previously felt an unprecedented amount of distaste. And she's a daddy's girl. A sucker I am for such stuff. 

A film of Pride and Prejudice can only be as successful as its Elizabeth. The 1940 try is, in virtually every aspect, a failure. The actors are too old, the script too fluffy, and the direction too stiff. A classic example of Hollywood pillaging bookshelves for a popular story it can snatch up and water down. Laurence Olivier thought Greer Garson a poor choice for Elizabeth, and he was right, she's as exciting as a pine cone, but he was wrong for letting his frustrations spill over into his performance. No better actor has ever played Mr. Darcy, but no actor has so underwhelmed in the role. 

Oh hey, Heather Angel is in the 1940 film, blah blah, Sonic Youth reference.

The studio behind such moon-faced punter pleasers as Love, Actually and Bridget Jones's Diary presented their version of P&P ten years after a celebrated BBC miniseries gave the world wet, shirtless Colin Firth. These Bennets are bumpkins, basically. Jane isn't especially handsome, Elizabeth isn't preternaturally mature, and the parents appear fond of one another. Younger audiences responded enthusiastically, even if literary critics and Austen stans weren't so warm. Kiera Knightley became an overnight star, and her chemistry with Matthew MacFadyen excuses some iffy dialogue choices. 

Let's get back to calling women "handsome."

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The novel's most outstanding aspect--Austen's use of "free indirect speech," wherein the voices of narrator and character essentially blend--is irrelevant in the visual medium. Both screenplays endeavored to capture the slice and shine of the original text while selling palatable product. The 2005 film does the better job, but so far as feats go, that's a fairly flat one. Perhaps no movie can offer up such grandiloquence as is found in Austen's gem and realistically expect viewers to stick around. Definitely, no movie has done justice to Mr. Darcy's ravishing synthesis of gall and gallantry, or Mr. Collins's odious obsequiousness. Safer to shoot the works on costumes.

*Yes, the author of Brave New World. Times wuz tight.