Movie Review - Pride & Prejudice
Posted by Administrator on January 29th, 2006
Pride and Prejudice is a classic love story that takes place in the 19th century, and is based on a book
The story is about the Beet family and their heartfelt yet often humorous struggle to survive in Edwardian England. The family is poor, and the only way to secure the family’s future is for their eldest daughters to marry into a rich family. The story covers the various trials and tribulations that the girls face, especially focusing on Elizabeth, who is played by Keira Knightley in this film adaptation.
There have been other adaptations of the book, but this is the first time that Hollywood has tackled it in a big way. The result is a beautiful heartfelt drama that will stay in your mind for quite some time after you have left the theater.
If you have read the book or seen the 5 hour long miniseries made a decade ago then you are obviously going to compare this film to those versions of the story. The most obvious hindrance that the film has in comparison to the previous versions is the time restriction. While they do a good job of squeezing as much of the story into the film as they can, it just isn’t the type of story you can do in two hours, so they couldn’t be 100 percent faithful to the book in that sense. But that is really the only area where this film is weaker than it’s 1995 counterpart.
Overall I think that this condensed version is actually much more palpable to most people, and the acting this time around is better, as is the cinematography and overall feel in general. The other film simply didn’t have the budget to look this good, and the professionalism of this adaptation really makes the older version look somewhat primitive and made for TV, which it of course it essentially was.
Keira Knightley really shines in this picture as Elizabeth, and it is by far the best performance I’ve seen her give. You really care about her character, and there is real chemistry between her character and Mr Darcy (played by Matthew MacFadyen). If you love a good romantic movie then Pride & Prejudice will not disappoint. Highly recommended.
Let me know if you enjoyed this movie as much as I did by adding your comment below.