to opine that the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is not very good?

[ScribblyGum]

Watching it with dd1 (15) as evidence of what constitutes a great romantic story after sitting through the utter shite that is the Harry Styles fan fiction movie After.

I know P&P is lots of other stuff but I wanted to show her something that I believed was excellent telly.

Four episodes in and I’ve come to the terrible realisation that actually it’s really dated, boring, badly acted and all in all a bit crap.

Far, far too much dull mimsy dancing.

Colin Firth is hot but doesn’t bring much to the part apart from posh snooty emotionally constipated hotness.

Alison Steadman's acting is just silly.

The music is too loud. Are the costumes a bit crap too? Not sure, there’s some bloody weird turbans going on on Caroline Bingley's head.

God it’s so BORING. Neither of us can be arsed to finish it.

I bet the Keira Knightly version is better

I rewatch it every couple of years (lies - every year!) and am now struck by the slow burn of it. I love how it builds tension and is quite slow paced compared to a lot of modern tv. Nothing will change my mind that this is the gold standard of period drama

@EugenesAxe Edward Ferrars is cousin Matthew from Downton Abbey!

As I remember the ‘gossip’ from the companion book was all a bit boring and twee - everyone got on, they had picnics etc etc 🙄

Stop being silly. YAB extremely U.

Yes! But also the Beast - how did I watch that and not realise the Downton link 😳 I was wondering about Eleanor too but I know her from the same place; Agathe.

Colin Firth......

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Yum yum yum.

Come on, you've all got to dig out Larry Olivier

Mrs Bennett in the novel is a very silly woman (though with real worries with so many unmarried daughters). Alison Steadman ( whom I generally like) made her vicious . So wrong.

I don't agree with this or the other characterisations of Mrs. Bennett as a comic turn. When Mr. Bennett dies, the sole provision for their daughters will come from Mrs. Bennetts' estate. It isn't much but it would keep them from starvation. Their father has provided nothing - saved nothing from a substantial estate. I think Jane Austen set it up this way for a reason. Her satire wasn't one dimensional.

Mrs. Bennett's concern about her daughters marrying well is the equivalent today of a mother worrying about her daughters going to university or getting a good job. It was about survival. Yes she was often superfically silly and venal but the reality is that Mr Bennett was sillier and more venal - he had many the witty remark but he utterly failed to provide for his family's future.

I did a university class in victorian literature aimed at older students and every single one of us said "loved Mr. Bennett when we read this in our teens but god, as I read this as an adult, he was useless"

Hated Judy Dench's version of Lady Catherine.

You are clearly deranged op. Watch the Keira Knightly one, (an appropriate punishment) then you will learn the error of your ways. And Mrs Bennet, being desperate to marry off her daughters, can be rather vicious. I like Brenda Blethyn, but she is too soft in the role imo, there is nothing soft about Mrs Bennet. She is devious, selfish and mean spirited.

No no no NOT Laurence Olivier’s Darcy. He conspires with Lady C de B to work out whether Lizzy is a gold digger! MN would have her LTBing in a heartbeat.

WHAT. THE. FUCK?! 😱😱😱😱😱

Alison Steadman's Mrs Bennett was spot on. Mrs Bennett is ridiculous and embarrassing, if she wasn't so, then the title and premise of the book wouldn't make any sense.

Brenda Blethlyn's portrayal made Mrs Bennett a pitiful and sympathetic character thereby rendering Mr Darcy as a snobby and nasty person in being too proud to align himself with her daughter.

It was Mrs Bennett's embarrassing manners, dramatic behaviour and gold-digging that explained Darcy's reluctance, and in turn gave you the glorious slow-burn of the BBC's portrayal of his attempts to resist Elizabeth's charms.

The film doesn't stay true to the book, but I generally like seeing a new take on things. I don't get why people get so uppity about things like this. I think a real fan just wants to see/read everything. 'Death comes to Pemberley' wasn't scripted by Austen, and 'Mr Darcy's diary' wasn't written by her, but I love P&P so much that I just want more and more of it. But of course there's never going to be anymore of Austen's, so I'm happy to experience someone else's take on it.

And OP, YABU, the BBC adaptation is great, despite not being a 100% accurate (but nearly there) portrayal of Elizabeth.

She is devious, selfish and mean spirited.

selfish and mean spirited for wanting her daughters to NOT spend the rest of their lives as spinsters in regency society on 50 pounds a year??? how about pragmatic and focused on her children's future well-being?

Mr. Bennett is the selfish one. He didn't save anything out of his income for his daughters but spent it. He doesn't lift a finger to try to place them in a better position. He doesn't care for them (see Lydia and Elizabeth's conversation with him about her going to Brighton).

The Keira Knightley version is absolutely dire

This x 1000! If you want to see "silly" acting Donald Sutherland as Mr Bennett took some beating.

Having said that, I preferred the Emma Thompson Sense & Sensibility to the BBC P&P.

Mr Bennett is a thoroughly nasty self centred piece of work. A gentleman by birth certainly, but that's all that can be said for him.

Being concerned about your daughters' prospects is one thing, but being prepared to offload your 16 year old onto the first man who admires her is quite another. And then there is forcing your DD to marry a man that she actively disliked, with the threat of never speaking to her again if she refuses. Mr. Bennet is no prince, but Mrs. Bennet is awful.

I like the BBC version. I particularly liked the actress who played Elizabeth Bennet.

I agree Alison Steadman is dire though. Mrs Bennet is meant to be comic not mind-searingly cringeworthy.

Being concerned about your daughters' prospects is one thing, but being prepared to offload your 16 year old onto the first man who admires her is quite another. And then there is forcing your DD to marry a man that she actively disliked, with the threat of never speaking to her again if she refuses. Mr. Bennet is no prince, but Mrs. Bennet is awful.

But that isn't what happened.

Lydia ran away with Wickham - Mrs. Bennet didn't offload her onto him.

And Eliza refused Mr Collins and Mrs Bennett certainly didn't stop talking to her.

I sometimes think there should be the equivalent of the mad woman in the attic/Jane Eyre feminist analysis of Pride and Prejudice which would be the pragmatic woman in the drawing room. Charlotte in P&P was basically the more genteel and less comic version of Mrs Bennett. But both of them had a point. What would Eliza be as a spinster on 50 pounds a year? How would her life be? That is what was engaging her mother. nothing was engaging her father other than his own wit.

Mrs Bennet is meant to be comic not mind-searingly cringeworthy.

she is meant to be mind-searingly cringeworthy. Elizabeth says it herself in the book that years of happiness couldn't compensate herself and Jane for the humiliation (cringe) of her mother and sisters' behaviour.

I always think for all Mrs Bennett’s faults she’s a better parent than Mr Bennett who gives zero thought to his daughters futures.

What choices did these girls have other than marriage or being a governess?

You only have to look at Emma to see genteel poverty.

Charlotte Lucas always seemed to me to be far more practical than Elizabeth & Jane.

I always think for all Mrs Bennett’s faults she’s a better parent than Mr Bennett who gives zero thought to his daughters futures.

Which could not be said for Alison Steadman's interpretation of the character.

Realistically I think Alison Steadman’s OTT performance is necessary to convey the almost fatal levels of mortification she creates in Elizabeth to a modern audience. If she gave a more nuanced performance, which Austen might still have recognised as intolerably vulgar, I’m not sure a huge prime time non-Austenite audience would have seen her for the ghastly horror that she is.

When Darcy proposes he says (I paraphrase) “frankly I think I’m making an enormous sacrifice in contemplating having that appalling woman as my actual MIL” and when Lizzy thinks about it the next day she realises “not the politest thing to say, but yeah, he does have a point”.

"I did a university class in victorian literature aimed at older students and every single one of us said "loved Mr. Bennett when we read this in our teens but god, as I read this as an adult, he was useless"

Maybe a true sign of age/?wisdom is when you reach the view that actually Mr Collins would have been not that bad as a dh! Reliable, solvent, faithful (I'm assuming), industrious etc. If faced with the other options available to a woman of that time, I mean - not suggesting that he'd be a good candidate these days!

"I did a university class in victorian literature aimed at older students and every single one of us said "loved Mr. Bennett when we read this in our teens but god, as I read this as an adult, he was useless"

Maybe a true sign of age/?wisdom is when you reach the view that actually Mr Collins would have been not that bad as a dh! Reliable, solvent, faithful (I'm assuming), industrious, well meaning etc. If faced with the other options available to a woman of that time, I mean - not suggesting that he'd be a good candidate these days!

P&P is not a Victorian novel. One thing the mostly awful KK film did get right was in having it as not Victorian.
I've cooled on the BBC adaptation too, although I always thought Alison Steadman's Mrs B was far too shrill. (Main difference is now thinking Matthew M is a better Darcy (more vulnerable).) But it is umpteen years old - time for a new one!