pride and prejudice new movie!

[bea]

trailer here

... looks very exciting but how can we get colin firth and the bbc production out of our heads... good darcy though! liked him in spooks!!!

Agree about Colin Firth, he is so lovely. I want the DVD of Pride and Prejudice for Xmas (will write a note to Santa).

I love him in Bridget Jones too, so sweet especially in the first one!!!!

I've just been to see it. I expected to be disappointed, but it was wonderful. Matthew McFadyen is great, I think he gives Mr. Darcy a whole new dimension - it's more about him not having the social skills and being shy than about being totally and solely arrogant and up himself, which works really well. KK is great too, esp. when she doesn't smile - don't like her smile very much. It is filmed beautifully, delicious to look at. Mrs. Bennet is better than in the BBC version IMO, not quite so over the top hysterical. Will go to bed now and dream of Mr. Darcy...

Nope sorry, have to disagree

It is a truth unversally acknowledged that "It is a truth unversally acknowledged" has to be in a Pride and Prejuidice adaptaion.

The script was dreadful, so many of the incredibly good speeches has been mucked about with. Who decided that the Bennetts should live on a farm? And if a man in the late 18th century told a woman that she had bewitched him then she was usually due for a burning or a ducking!! Sorry, but could rant on for ages about inconsisitencies like that!

Five of us went to see it, three knew the book very well and disliked it, the two that didn't know the book at all liked it.

I love Matthew McFaddeyn, think he is a wonderful actor, but he was very badly served in this film, by a script that didn't live up to the original book.

lilibet, I've always thought a good film of a book has to be 'if you love sombody set them free' (I sincerely hope this is the last time I ever publically quote Sting... ).

Good, well constructed book into less than 2 hours on screen does not go, if it does it means the book is a bit too simplistic as a book.

The best you can hope for is using a good story and some great characters to create a movie that works. I would agree this film isn't true to the book. But then Clueless isn't true to Emma, but I still thought it was great.

Lilibet - sorry you didn't like it.
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But as someone said furhter down the tv adaptation of Persuasion is fantastic and that's film length.

And Sense and Sensibility was good too!

I was expecting this film to be crap, but I loved it. Keira Knightley won me over towards the end (although I still think there's something contrived about her).

Could it be that she looks wide-eyed and pouty even in repose, SD (toddler dd pulls a KK face occasionally when she is not allowed to throw grapes round the room etc)
Haven't seen it yet, interested to see so many people are liking the film more than they expected to.
No-one has mentioned if Tom (Thumb) Hollander is much good as Mr Collins yet...David Bamber being very much a highlight for me of the BBC adaptation...
And agree that the film of Persuasion came as close to being Janeite perfection in the cinema...lovely Ciaran Hinds and Simon Russell Beale, even breathy Amanda Root was fab.

Just reading your posts on it lilibet. I can certainly see what you mean about the script. Much from the book is lost in this adaption, and liberties have been taken. But I still liked it - I liked Brenda Blethyn's characterisation of Mrs Bennett (not merely played as a pantomime dame); I liked the emphasis on the economics of the situation the Bennetts are in; I liked the dirty hems. I thought Matthew McFadyen smouldered wonderfully.

Oh Marina, Tom Hollander is fantastic!

Persuasion (the Amanda Root/Ciaran Hinds one) is to my mind the greatest Austen adaptation ever made. I do wish a plainer actress had been cast as Elizabeth Bennett in this adaptation because, although KK did win me over, I spent some of the earlier parts of the film noticing her irritating pout.

Tom Hollander was very good, but there was one scene, in which I was in uncontrolable giggles. Darcy, Col. Fitzwilliam and Mr Collins are stood in a line and it just reminded me of the John Cleese/Ronnie Barker/Ronnie Corbett sketch. " I look down on him....."

did anyone else notice Donald Sutherlands teeth?

You could hardly not notice them! Surely they could've yellowed them up a bit for the movie?

and why did her Aunt and Uncle leave her at Pemberley and not wait for her in the carriage?

Sorry - nitpicking now!

I'm going to sound like a huge geek now but Lillibet's complaint about the 'farm' has been worrying me for days now!

Although Mr Bennet isn't a 'farmer', he has a decent amount of land (enough to shoot on), so he would have been running an agricultural element. The 'excuse' Mrs Bennet gives for not allowing Jane the carriage to go to Netherfield is that the horses are needed on the farm.

Any rural large family would have needed chickens and probably pigs, and if they had access to space and enough money, cows too. In that scene Lizzie was coming in the back of the house and to see that amount of livestock was perfectly normal for sort of house.

OK, feeling better now

Phillipat, are you my best freind in disguise? When I showed her my comment she quoted that bit of the book to me too!!

But would there really have been pigs wandering in the house? I think that the social gap between Darcy/Bingley and the Bennetts was exagerated greatly in the film.

I'm a bit of a P&P geek too

And surely he would have been more of a 'gentleman farmer', if he had the facilities for a pheasant shoot?

well, will admit you're right about the pigs in the house but I think that was meant to illustrate the chaotic nature of Mrs Bennet's house rather than the social difference. Actually a bugbear I always have about historical adaptations is that the posh houses are always way too posh! yes, Mr Darcy had 10 thousand a year (10 x what Mr Bennet had), but that wasn't enough for Chatsworth!

and and and (sorry I'm on a roll here and dd is not ready for school yet as a consequence!)...

I think the difficulty with P&P (the book) to modern minds is that's it's really hard to grasp exactly why Lizzie overcame her prejudice. Gratitude and love don't really seem to have the close intertwining for women now that they once did.

There ARE bits of the book dialogue which adaptations could use (Lizzie and then Gardiner's conversation with the Pemberley housekeeper and Lizzie's joking comment to Jane that she first fell in love after seeing the extensive grounds at Pemberley) but that would give completely the wrong impression... I really liked that this production showed Lizzie as a girl still learning about love. It made much more sense to modern lives.

We've got a pig that likes to come in the house when she gets the chance. She likes to sit on the tiles in front of the rayburn to warm her bum when its cold. Not that we are posh - but we are not rough either! It depends on the pig. Maybe the Bennets had friendly pigs! Looking forward to seeing it now

Message withdrawn

I think my problem is that I probably don't have a modern mind

Bah humbug! Didn't like it

Fabulous photography, some beautiful scenes. But I really didn't like the script. I just couldn't understand why they hadn't lifted Austen's dialogue straight from the books, because it really works. So many bits I was waiting for just didn't happen!

Matthew MacFayden was gorgeous, but he could play the incredible hulk and I would think that.

Whoever played Mr Collins was brilliant in the part.

I enjoyed watching it, but didn't think wow.