24/05/25

Netflix

It’s hard to believe that Joe Wright’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is already twenty years old – and, while it’s been rereleased into selected cinemas to mark the occasion, it’s also right there on Netflix, all ready for re-examination at the touch of a button. I remember liking it back in the day and feeling that it was much more realistic than the widely-admired 1995 TV mini-series, which I found a little too chocolate-boxy.

Wright’s version, though offering a tranquil and bucolic adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel, actually succeeds in showing the slightly down-at-heel and ramshackle nature of the Bennet family. In this version, a viewer fully understands the mounting desperation of Mrs Bennet (a wonderfully scatty Brenda Blethyn) as she seeks to find suitable husbands for her daughters, aware all the time that the clock is ticking and the women of the family stand on the edge of penury. Mr Bennet (Donald Sutherland) is useless, looking on in mystified wonder as his wife goes about her earnest business.

As the wilful and opinionated Elizabeth, Keira Knightley is an inspired choice. Why so many critics have taken against her acting abilities is quite beyond me, but here she plays Lizzie with considerable skill, scathing in her early encounters with Mr Darcy (a deliciously-sombre Matthew Macfadyen) and loving and playful in her interplay with Jane (Rosamund Pike) and her other sisters (look out for an early appearance by Carey Mulligan as Kitty). There’s a splendid turn from Rupert Friend as the caddish Mr Wickham, while Judi Dench struts her inimitable stuff as the acid-tongued Lady Catherine and Tom Hollander is wonderfully obsequious as Mr Collins, the reverend with an earnest desire to impress her.

The source novel has been cleverly adapted by Deborah Moggach, with additional (uncredited) dialogue by Emma Thompson, who had already earned herself an Oscar for her work on Ang Lee’s version of Sense and Sensibility. Wright never lingers too long on a scene and consequently the running time of two hours and nine minutes seems to positively flash by.

There are so many simple yet effective moments that have stayed with me since my first viewing. I love the scene where the Bennets’ prize pig wanders through their living quarters as though it’s a perfectly natural state of affairs, and the scene where Elizabeth and Darcy, enacting a complicated dance routine in the midst of a frenetic party are, quite suddenly, dancing completely alone. Roman Osin’s lush cinematography makes every landscape look suitably ravishing yet never overplays its hand. A scene where a pensive Elizabeth is taken from bright morning sunlight into the dark shadows of evening in one slow take is so understated, it barely registers.

This is Wright’s debut full-length feature and yet it feels like the work of a more experienced director. He would go straight on from this to his adaption of Atonement, another extraordinary literary film, once again with Knightley in a key role.

Sometimes when you return to a film after a long interval, you wonder what made you like it so much on first viewing. In the case of Pride and Prejudice, I feel I enjoy it even more.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney