Keira Knightley | Bouquets & Brickbats

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

20/10/19

Official Secrets is based on a true story; the fact that it’s one of the most shameful events in our recent history makes it worth seeing, even if the film itself doesn’t quite match up to Keira Knightley’s sterling performance in the central role.

She plays Katharine Gun, a translator at GCHQ in Cheltenham, a British intelligence agency. She’s paid to snoop on emails and recorded phone calls, in order to seek out those individuals who might represent a danger to the people of Great Britain – but what she stumbles upon emanates from a close ally and fills her with dismay.

It’s 2003 and the western world is moving ever closer to armed conflict with Iraq. Katharine spots an email from somebody called Frank Koza of the American-based National Security Agency, who is masterminding a (clearly illegal) plan to bug the offices of the United Nations in order to put pressure on politicians, ‘encouraging’ them to vote for an invasion of Iraq. Appalled by the thought of so many people dying in the ensuing conflict, Katharine secretly makes a copy of the email and passes it on to an anti-war activist she knows. The email eventually finds its way into the hands of Observer journalist Martin Bright (Matt Smith), who publishes the piece. But when MI6 come looking for the whistleblower, it’s soon apparent that Katherine has put herself – and her Muslim husband, Yasar (Adam Bakri) – in terrible jeopardy.

The central message of Gavin Hood’s film is all too evident. We cannot trust the institutions that purport to have our best intentions at heart; too many of them are ready to cover up their dodgy deals by any means possible and throw to the wolves all who oppose them.

As I said, Knightley gives a remarkable performance here, but the bitty screenplay means that a whole procession of top-notch character actors are reduced to what amount to little more than cameo appearances. It says something when Ralph Fiennes, playing Kathrine’s defence lawyer, Ben Emerson, has little to do other than stand on a beach gazing mournfully at his fishing rod; throw in fleeting appearances from the likes of Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode and Tamsin Greig to name but three, and it’s clear that something is amiss.

Furthermore, the rather dry nature of the ensuing events occasionally prompts the writers to sex things up a little: it seems unlikely, for instance, that Yasar would have come quite so close to deportation as is depicted here – but nevertheless, this is an important story, one that should serve as a warning to anyone who believes in the sanctity of democracy. As the film points out, thousands of innocent people died because of the conflict in Iraq – a war that is now widely seen as an illegal violation of human rights. Katharine Gun was trying, in her own way, to prevent it from happening.

Tony Blair is not going to like what’s depicted here – and his is not the only political name that’s given a thorough kicking. Furthermore, recent developments in Syria make this all too prescient.

3.9 stars

Philip Caveney