Appreciation For The 1990s Pride And Prejudice

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It's never been equalled as novel adaptations go!! Everyone is perfect !

Thank you for this, I wanted to reply but was lacking motivation. When I watched the 2005 film it didn’t sit right that lizze would ever have entered the house through what looked like a muddy back entrance and a poor farm existence. I know Lizze was always meant to be a carefree sort, but the Bennets would still of adhered to many social and class perimeters of the time.

I like the 2005 film but treat it as a sort of liberty taking retelling, I know it was set in the 1790s when the book was originally conceived, where as the 95 to adaption its set on time of publication. The hairstyles for a start in the 2005 version are way off for the 1790s.

Its a bit like the film adaptation of Vanity Fair with Rece Witherspoon, I like it but have to think of it as a very distant retelling of the book, the 1998 to version of vanity fair is perfection for me, also the 1980s one.

I thought she was perfect. She really understood Mrs. Bennet, who was not the smart, well educated and a bit of a hypochondriac. She didn't really get the world and constantly felt herself hard done by. However, she did understand that unless one of her daughters did not marry some insanely wealthy man, she would likely end up in the poor house, as there were no other family members of whose charity she could live off. I feel Steadman killed it and I cannot imagine anyone else in the role.

I really couldn't stand Brenda Blethyn as Mrs Bennet in the 2005 version. The incessant giggling felt really out of character. Then again I really didn't like the 2005 version.

I mostly enjoyed it at the time but found Alison Steadman so shrill and over the top that she came close to spoiling it for me.

@cariadlet I’m so pleased you’ve said this, Alison Steadman is terrible. Mrs Bennett had a lot to worry about and whilst we know Lizzie thinks she’s silly, she has very real concerns and voices them, she is still meant to be sympathetic. Steadman (a fine actress otherwise) played her like a pantomime dame. I thought Brenda Blethyn actually nailed it in the 2005 version.

Also I’d like to put out some appreciation for another Jane Austin adaptation that was filmed the same year, the 1995 version of Persuasion is absolute perfection. The actors were filmed with very little intervention from makeup and all mostly had their natural hair and teeth, it was like looking through a time portal almost. The fact that the cast were not chosen to be over pretty and their skin didn’t look perfect, it just made it so real to me. A review of the time called the production almost over plain, but I just loved it, Amanda Root was the perfect Anne Elliot!

Yes that film was perfection, perfectly cast, costumed and scripted.

I love Brenda Blethyn as an actress but didn't enjoy her portrayal of Mrs Bennet in the 2005 version. For a start I found her much to old for the role at almost 60. We are meant to believe that Mrs Bennet was the young, beautiful ingenue who had enticed the attentions of a more cultured and academic Mr Bennet. Given the norms of the time, she would likely have been around 17-20 when they married - making her likely early 40s in P&P.

Felt the same about Penelope Wilton as Mrs Gardiner - also 59 in 2005 - who is supposed to have very young children.

Yes, I agree, she was miscast

I must say that I don't like a "bad" Colonel Fitzwilliam - although, given it was a PD James murder mystery, I understood that they needed to make quite a few of the characters "suspects" and therefore unlikeable.

As I said, I was not keen on Death Comes to Pemberley as a book although I loved the Dalgliesh books by PD James.

Thing is women of 40 on the late 1700’s/early 1800’s probably did look like women of 60 today.

Also the stress of 5 unmarried girls will have aged her. Poor Mrs B.

But yes Penelope Wilton was way too old to be Mrs G - except they changed the story so that they were childless!! Terrible. I loved the 1995 Mrs Gardiner, who can 100% tell Lizzie has the horn for Darcy from the get go

I like to pretend Death Comes to Pemberley never happened. Awful book, but the adaptation had Matthew Goode in and there can’t be much wrong with that even if he does play a right bastard

I think that the 2005 movie was visually very appealing in a way that the 10 years earlier BBC was not. Things were designed to be visually spectacular even if it strayed from the book. I think some of it was down to better CGI techniques being available in 2005 - like the sun rays hitting Elizabeth as she stood on the rocks of Stannage Edge.

Other visual impact came from them shifting the locations to increase visual impact. For example moving the first proposal in Kent to a folly overlooking a lake in the pouring rain rather than the claustrophobic sitting room of Hunsford parsonage which was true to the book. Again with the final proposal that was very Charlotte Bronte, a windswept moor in the mist rather than on an autumnal walk with Jane, Bingley and Kitty.

However there were things I was not so keen on in the 2005 version. Some of it was down to pruning storylines to fit into a film format others were just to try and appeal to US audiences

• I though Keira Knightly was miscast as Elizabeth Bennet - the character because like the role she played in Love Actually - a bit giggly and flirty - rather than the clever and witty character of Jane Austen.
• I thought Wickham was a damp squib - he was not really portrayed as a schemer who preyed on young and naive girls especially if they had money
• Mr Collins was played for laughs by making him look about 12 but never truly getting into the strange counterplay between pridefulness and obsequiousness of the character
• Mr Bingley was styled as a ca 2000 boy-bander
• They overdid "the Bennets are poor" scenarios - the Bennets are gentry (OK the lower rungs) but still live in a manor house with servants. If Mr and Mrs Bennet didn't fritter away so much money they would be a lot better off. Mr Bennet was a gentleman farmer (like Darcy) but would not have had pigs and chickens in the garden and Lizzy would not have dressed like the scullery maid.
• The Meryton Assembly was wrong - it was staged like a farmers' barn dance than an assembly. Assemblies were mostly events for the gentry and wealthy tradesmen because you had to pay admission and would be held in formal assembly rooms.

I found this article from 2015 very interesting by an economist. It calculated what the incomes and fortunes of major characters in Jane Austen novels would be in 2015 ($) using 3 different methods of calculation.

For example Mr Darcy's £10,000 a year would be worth between a million and 16 million and Emma Woodhouse's (and Georgiana Darcy's) £30,000 dowry would be worth between 3 million and almost 50 million.

https://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/vol36no1/toran/

I've got to say it- I don't like Jennifer as Lizzie. That smug face 🙄

The P&P is the best
but Persuasion with Anna Root is great - and the actual book of Persuasion is my favourite.

For fun adaptations of P&P I still have a massive soft spot for this one
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361411/

Agreed. It's a rare blunder indeed when the otherwise wonderful P D James produces an absolute turkey, but she certainly managed it with this book.

Austen's lightness and ironic social commentary really jarred against the darker echelons of the human character and moody, atmospheric tone of your average James novel. Doesn't work for me - and I am a huge James fan.

is this the 1995 with colin firth?

i like Emma 1990 with Romola Garai

I thought Romola Garai was 2009 version and 1990 was Gwyneth Paltrow

Did you feel that you had to pluck up courage to post this? I am smiling. I liked her well enough but I am easy to please, maybe, and I did like Elizabeth Garvie and Keira - faces a bit thinner, but not exactly angular.
By the end of the book or film Lizzie is bound to look like the smuggest cat that ever got the cream.
It's on Drama now and Colin is about to make a very bad screen kiss.

Also I’d like to put out some appreciation for another Jane Austen adaptation that was filmed the same year, the 1995 version of Persuasion is absolute perfection.

I was coming to say this. Really true to the book, perfect cast. I don't think there's any character who you could say is not quite right.

That’s the 2009 one and is without a doubt the best Emma

Gwyneth Paltrow one was absurd. As if Emma Woodhouse would ever spoon feed the poor. Also Mr Elton is supposed to be a total babe and as much as I love Alan Cumming he was terrible for the part.

Dont get me started on Ewan McGregor’s wig.

However Nessa from Gavin and Stacey plays the Bates maid and apparently had her lines taken away by Paltrow! I love spotting little cameos of the future like that.

The recent Emma was fire. Bleach blonde hair and microblade eyebrows, please!

Dont event get me started on the Persuasion with whatsherface from 50 shades. Abominable.

The best Persuasion was one with Amanda Root I think her name was in. Exquisite

you are right,
2009

and the gorgeous Jonny Lee Miller

“Dont get me started on Ewan McGregor’s wig.”

I for one would very much like to hear such a rant 😂

The perfect Mr Knightley.

Mr Knightley is my favourite of all the Austen men.

Hes patient, kind, not afraid to put people in their place (“Badly done Emma” is a rather erotic moment if you ask me) and not overly horny or silly. He also danced with Harriet

I’m alway sacred to say this on Austen threads..but can I put this opinion out there <dons tin hat>

Alan Rickman was creepy as Colonel Brandon.