to think that the classic Pride and Prejudice costume drama with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle is actually...um...CRAP?

[GetOrfMo1Land]

When it came out in 1995 I was addicted as anybody.

But - 16 years later it is very dated and a bit naffola, really.

Really dozy acting in some bits, and all typical twee BBC costume drama. Someone says something mildly shocking and you have the 5-way reaction shots of everyone in the room.

And the but where it goes all misty when Darcy is reading out his letter to Elizabeth is cringingly silly.

It's a bit rubbish really, or at best very of its time.

I agree that the director had Alison Steadman pitch Mrs Bennett somewhat below where she really was on the social scale, but I quite like this adaptation - mostly because it's what, six hours? So plenty of time to get more or less everything in, unlike most sub-2-hour film versions. (The woeful Joe Wright/Keira Knightley version more or less omitted the Elizabeth /Wickham attraction entirely, so it matters less that he then runs off with Lydia... Plus I spent the entire film staring at Donald Sutherland's huge 'Big Bad Wolf' teeth...)

Austen does say in the novel that Mary might have been prevailed upon to accept Mr Collins, as she appreciates his bookishness and thinks his pomposity is cleverness - there's no indication he ever considered her, but then again, it's Charlotte Lucas who makes a determined play for him, not the other way round, and he's wounded by his rejection by Lizzy, so ripe for capture. That's the subplot that always fascinates and horrifies me in P and P - that Charlotte, who is clever and sensible enough to be Lizzy's best friend, nonetheless marries a buffoon who makes her publicly ridiculous, and whose society she can't stand, and has at least one child with him, because the prospect of being a penniless spinster dependent on her resentful eldest brother for houseroom is her only other choice, as she's plain, portionless, and 27!

I think David Bamber's Mr Collins was a work of genius, despite the fact that he was much too old for the part. And I never fancy Colin Firth much, though I think he's quite good in this.

yy absolutely dollydoops. The book may not have shown her "in love" with Mr Collins, but it does place her as someone who would like to be considered by him, and who admired him because she was the same kind of faux-moral, faux-intellectual poseur as him. Anybody else feel, as I do, that she had a horrible short straw? They all wanted their rather withdrwn lazy father's attention. Jane got it by being beutiful and graceful; Lizzy got it by being so very clever (perhaps this appealed to his desire for a boy coupled with his pigeonholing of such virtues as male); Mary sought it by aping Lizzie's intelligence, failing to be clever, and retreating into a sad parody of intelligence. I feel sorry ofr her. If her dad had tried wioth her she would have been lovely.

typos. Cooking dinner.

Its still one the best Pride and Prejudice films. Love it.

So you think its crap. To each their own. Its no skin off my back.

Mary and Mr Collins get it together in the dreadful Lawrence Olivier/Greer Garsen version.

Yes, Mr Bennet is a culpable figure, and I do like that he has to face his faults in the end. Sad that his daughters have to suffer for him to see sense, though. Their eventual success is nothing to do with him!

Psycho - that is only because it cuts out SO MANY of the other characters and plot lines

I love the book
I reread it about once every other month
alternate months with Persuasion - Anne Elliot is the best heroine. And I love walking on the Cobb at Lyme.

Yes. I get the impression that he tried hard with his first two children, and that he was giving up on his family just at the point that Mary was born ("Another daughter! I've had it.") So she bore the brunt of seeing him withdraw, and became ever more desperate to win approval by thinking and saying the right things. The next two daughters saw nothing of their dad so couldn't give a fuck. Mary has middle child syndrome in spades.

I thought Mary got off with the piano tuner in the Greer Garson film? Maybe my memory is failing...

I am sorry but I can't read this thread beyond Happyasiam's unfortunate admission that she is open mouthed at Andrew Davies' erection.

I saw the actress who played Mary in the BBC P and P (Lucy Briers) recently on stage, and she was excellent. Also considerably prettier than in her Mary incarnation!

I agree Mary gets the fuzzy end of the lollipop - she shows off so desperately with her books and music because she's so conscious of being the only 'plain one', and because she bores the rest of her family, sisters and parents, rigid. She'd have been happier in a wealthier family where having a whacking great dowry would made up for her lack of looks - and where she wouldn't have had to try so hard to be 'accomplished'. You never have the impression she has any real interest in books and music, it's just all she has, with no prospects.

Though it always irks me slightly that the actress playing Jane in the BBC version, while she is nice-looking, doesn't have the kind of face or physique that looks good in Regency hairstyles and frocks. It looks a bit odd, as she's supposed to be a lot prettier than Elizabeth, and in that version, Jennifer Ehle looks better in the clothes and hairstyles.

I agree about Jane! I didn't actually like her much because I'd remembered her in that serial with Ian Richardson where he was a politician and she was a young hack he was having an affair with and she called him 'Daddy'. I hold a grudge you see She wasn't what you'd call pretty and in the book she was.

Pagwatch

YABU. I like that version. Jane felt totally wrong to me though, I couldn't get past the fact that Jane was supposed to be really beautiful, known in society for her great beauty actually, so they should have cast someone else. Gosh that sounds mean. And

Hocus - I believe you are talking about House Of Cards, screenplay also written by our friend Andrew Davies.

Hmm, yes, a piano tuner sounds familiar, perhaps that's what happened. I thought it was Mr Collins though, because they missed out the whole Charlotte/Collins plot. And in the LO film, Lady Catherine gives Darcy her blessing to propose to Elizabeth.

yy re Jane being a bit plain in the Andrew Davies version.

Loved the way Amanda Root in Persuasion grew from plain to beautiful without any dramatic "makeover". Just how she grew from a subjugated girl to an independent woman made her bloom and look lovely. I've also shared a long lingering look with Amanda Root on a train. Oh, and Alan Rickman, who was the best thing in S&S. They all looked a bit frightened.

That's it. I'd never have remembered the title! I didn't know that was Andrew Davies as well. How weird.

I am probably going to watch this again, just to make sure I don't like it.

I remember when I got it on DVD for christmas several years ago - I wanted everybody (9 for christmas dinner) to piss off out of it so I could put the DVD on and watch 6 hours straight.

I do love the Lady Catherine and Elizabeth row in the garden. Brilliant. It's like a MN MIL showdown.

Amanda Root was brilliant in Persuasion, you can see how a Hollyuwood film would muck that up, it would all be like Anne Hathaway having a makeover in Devil wears Prada.

I didn't think that Jane was plain - my then boyfriend didn't think so either I seem to remember, (I did ask which Bennet sister he fancied!) but I was surprised to hear that in the books she was supposed to be a lot better looking than the others as I thought Lizzie & Lydia were at least as pretty in the 1995 version. I think I will always love that version though as it reminds me being 20, and of university. But I saw it again more recently and thought it stood up pretty well.

And Mr Darcy is still lovely. Though John Thornton is lovelier.

yy Getorf, she'd start off fat and dumpy (Hollywood style, ie, a size 8) and end up with a Brazilian, extensions and breast enhancement.

Julia Swahalla was all wrong as Lydia too. Wasn't Lydia meant to be almost as pretty as Jane and the tallest of the sisters? I always imagined a tall, willowy, skittish young filly when reading the book. Julia S just played her as a bit of a slovenly slob.

Persuasion : Just don't give me the Penry Jones 2007 version where they end up at Kellynch - totally missing the point of the book

I've just watched the trailer for Persuasion on IMDB- you must look it up, it's hilarious.

I watched it years ago and loved it, but I'm dying to see it again now. I don't suppose anybody has it on DVD that they would lend me, would they?

Julia Sawalha was too old and overacted.

The Jane was pretty, but not a beauty, and I think Jennifer E was better looking. The girl who played Jane in the Keira CHinley film was better, she was a beauty.