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 love love love it. I think Jennifer Ehle was amazing as Lizzie. I do agree that Alison Steadmans acting was a bit ott but other than that it was perfect.

My daughter who is 19 loves it as well and we definitely think the Kiera Knightly version is rubbish in comparison.
I watch it over and over along with Emma Thompson's Sense And Sensibility ! That is one of my all time favourite films !
Ah bliss! A lazy afternoon with a Jane Austin adaptation !

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

But for Charlotte Lucas to end up with a man as Mr Collins is always such a huge downer for me. She was so bright, engaging and switched-on, yet took the very first offer she received and ended up married to a man whose sole happiness in life depended on a cantankerous, mean old woman who found no pleasure in any of life's joys.

Reading the book as a teenager always felt like coming home. The BBC version was exactly the same and now as an adult the perspective on whose character has aged well has shifted enormously; Mrs Bennett is still repulsive and outrageous but I can entirely understand why, while Mr Bennett is wholly useless with his head buried in books in his study while his wife faced the likely horror of watching her daughters sink into poverty without him. I like him less as an adult than I ever did as a teen.

True - Mr Bennett seems unaware of male privelege!

Charlotte Lucas is 27 isn't she? - I've always assumed that meant she was absolutely past it in terms of marriage in those days, so Mr Collins was probably the only offer she was likely to get. And her future without marriage was to be dependent on her family for ever. But I agree that the marriage is a pragmatic rather than a cheerful prospect!

Mind you, I am not sure whether 27 was as 'on the shelf' then as we assume - didn't Emma's governess marry quite late - into her 30s?

Charlotte married for a roof over her head & stability. That her husband was a fool is IMO secondary to what she achieves in status as a married woman (for the time). And she’s no fool - when Mr Bennett dies her husband inherits & she’s back close to her family - mistress of her own home rather than depending on her family’s charity. But I also think JA refuses a similar offer so maybe JA thinks Charlotte would have been better off living off her family’s charity.

But that's the point, isn't it? She was a governess, which means she has to earn money because she was beyond marriageable age. Someone who is after an heir will not likely marry an older woman.

What?! Take yourself to the bin op.

Yes, and was Mr Weston a widower (can't remember) when he married Miss Taylor? So it was a different sort of marriage I suppose from the one that you'd enter into in early 20s. Although the Westons do then have a child.

But for Charlotte Lucas to end up with a man as Mr Collins is always such a huge downer for me. She was so bright, engaging and switched-on, yet took the very first offer she received and ended up married to a man whose sole happiness in life depended on a cantankerous, mean old woman who found no pleasure in any of life's joys.

But she was very old for the contemporary marriage market at 27, and plain whereas Lizzie is 20 and attractive and has an entirely pragmatic attitude to marriage as the only career open to a woman of her class, with no ambitions other than to have a household and some money of her own, and not to live as a spinster hanger-on with her family.

She sets out to get Mr Collins much in the way one of us might watch a more highly qualified friend be offered a crappy job and turn it down in disgust, but then secretly phone the company HR on our own behalf because even if it's crappy, we're underqualified and need the money, and we know it's predictable, respectable and not dangerous.

(And of course which is only ever mentioned by Mrs Bennet, but which can't not have been in Lizzie's mind Charlotte, in marrying Mr Collins, will inherit Longbourn, her best friend's family home and estate, which, when you think of it, would feel very odd and unpleasant to the Bennets -- and which would also make Mr Collins far more independent of Lady Catherine.)

Mind you, what also always strikes me about Charlotte is that, despite the fact that she has brothers (so Lucas Lodge won't be inherited by a distant cousin the way Longbourn will, and she, Maria and Lady Lucas won't be thrown out when Sir William dies) and so is in a far better position than any of the Bennet girls, she still grabs the one marital opportunity that comes her way without thinking twice, in fact, she schemes for it. Lizzie, despite facing genteel poverty with her sisters and mother, and the loss of her family home, never considers marrying Mr Collins at all, presumably because at some level she (rightly) thinks she can do better.

The character of Charlotte Lucas is a device which exemplifies Austen’s utter brilliance. She shows us how much courage and integrity Lizzie has through Charlotte’s actions.

I think that that the Charlotte plot there to point up that marriage in this society is still primarily an economic relationship, and that Lizzie is taking a gamble when she refuses Mr Collins.

Despite her good looks and charm, she has low connections on her mother's side, most of her family are a public embarrassment and there are no financial inducements to marrying her, and in fact Mr Collins isn't wrong when he says after she's refused him that it's by no means certain she will ever have another proposal.

I realise Mr Bennett is not a sympathetic character, but earlier posters were saying how bad he was not saving money for his daughters' futures. I am not sure he could have done, could he? His entire estate was going to Mr Collins on his death, so how could he save for his daughters?

The BBC version wins hands down. I felt with the film because they were getting it into 2 hours they ended up minimising bits such as the sister eloping with Wickham.

There is only one worthy version, and it is the BBC's with Elizabeth Garvey. I cannot stand Jennifer Ehle's smirk and Colin firth was a totally unconvincing Mr. Darcy.

I realise Mr Bennett is not a sympathetic character, but earlier posters were saying how bad he was not saving money for his daughters' futures. I am not sure he could have done, could he? His entire estate was going to Mr Collins on his death, so how could he save for his daughters?

No, Austen says he could have saved to amass a sum of money to be settled on his widow and children, but that he always spent his entire annual income, because both Bennets kept hoping for a son who would have kept the estate in the family.

Plus I think that's Austen's subtlety, that, while being personally enormously likeable ironic, clever, funny Mr Bennet is actually being incredibly irresponsible towards even the two daughters he really loves, while their silly, vulgar embarrassing mother has her head screwed on about how important it is to marry them before their father dies (even if her behaviour puts off key suitors).

there is absolutely no chemistry whatsoever between her and Matthew Macfadyen

😂 Whereas there's loads between Jennifer Ehler and Colin Firth? 😂 Sorry but this is just deluded wishful thinking.

Ehle - no idea where the rogue r came from.

I love all the po-faced wondering whether those of us who dare to prefer the film have actually read the book. Yes, I have, thanks - what's your point? I've also read Romeo and Juliet and am still capable of thinking that Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet is an absolutely bloody marvellous film despite knowing that the original play wasn't set in Verona Beach and the characters didn't all carry guns.

I like the BBC version. The only thing that annoys me about it is the woman who plays Lizzie's elder sister, who's meant to be the beauty of the family, is distinctly plain.

YABVVVVVVVVVVU.

As in, VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVU.

And I've only just noticed the Keira Knightly comment at the end of your OP!

You've killed me. I'm actually dead now.

YANBU

Kiera Knightly film version isn't perfect but is better than the BBC adaptaion I saw with Colin Firth - I don't think I've seen the 80s BBC version.

I come on here expecting a unanimous YABVVVVVUUUUU, only to find out that there are people who prefer the film version of Pride and Prejudice ...

The human race is truly doomed.

I may be taking this topic too seriously

The only thing that annoys me about it is the woman who plays Lizzie's elder sister, who's meant to be the beauty of the family, is distinctly plain.

The actress is actually very nice-looking in other things, but I agree that the Regency hairstyles and dresses don't suit her at all, and make her look weirdly ungainly. (Which is odd, because in all the behind the scenes stuff there was a lot about how they auditioned the actresses in the appropriate wigs to see how they looked? I seem to remember Jennifer Ehle darkening her blonde eyebrows to match her wig because she wanted the part and thought they wouldn't cast a blonde Lizzie...?)

Yes, poor Susannah Harker - the BBC didn't have the courage to let Jane outshine Lizzy, did they? Where as Rosamund Pike is stunning.

I have read the book - though I'm with TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross with Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet as well.