Pride & Prejudice

Tonight Jason's dad and step-mom took the family to see this movie. I was very excited to see it as I am in the middle of reading the book for the 3rd time now (it is my favorite). I was expecting it not to be very good for a four reasons. First, I couldn't imagine anyone but Colin Firth playing Mr. Darcy, second because I saw Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy kiss in the preview and was SURE that they were going to try to put sex in the movie even though it wasn't in the book, third because it is a feature length movie and I couldn't imagine that they could fit everything important in that amount of time (the BBC version is like 4 VHS tapes long), and fourth because Kiera Knightley seemed subdued in all the scenes in the previews and Elizabeth Bennet is supposed to be a feisty, fun, laughing girl.

Here are all the reasons I was wrong and then some.
1. Matthew MacFadyen (I am not a nerd, I had to look his name up)actually played quite a good Darcy. He had intense eyes (which is critical to the character) and good smile. Which the audience only gets to see twice for very brief moments. One thing that was good with this Mr. Darcy is that you could see earlier on that he actually has feelings. I think you have to wait longer in other films.
2. The kissing scene actually is realistic because it is after they get married. The book doesn't visit that part but it was a nice scene to finish up with I think.
3. Since I am reading the book right now, I noticed that all of the important dialogue is there. Pretty much verbatim. You never get the sense that a scene is missing even though I know some were missing. There were a couple minor scenes added which were there to make up for the scenes they took away but really, it was an excellent adaptation! I didn't feel like anything was missing.
4. I don't know why they only showed a subdued Lizzie in the previews. She was quite the opposite in the film. Kiera Knightley did a very good job. Very believable and I think I like her better than the Elizabeth in the BBC version. (although it is VERY close)

This movie was different than other period films becuase it felt far more real. In other films, everything is perfect and proper and clean and no hair is out of place. In this film, they live in a great house but you can actually tell that they are in a different class than Darcy. They have girl stuff spread around in the drawing room, the girls aren't always perfect and the hair was messy sometimes. I think people nowadays can identify with it more when it is like that.

I give this movie four stars! Go see it.
Happy Thanksgiving by the way!