Pride and Prejudice (new Netflix series)

[VibeCurator]

Not sure when this is being released (?) but I’m really looking forward to it. I loved the old BBC series and afaik there’s not really been a remake (besides the films) so this is quite exciting.

The cast has just been released too. What do we all think?

Love your username. Were you inspired by @BlueEyedBogWitch 's post from 22:40 on 30/7/25?

ETA @HarryVanderspeigle

Jumping on here too. We wait for stuff to build up on Netflix then join for a month. Loved the old BBC Colin Firth one and not sure about Olivia Coleman in this, she seems to be in everything.

Does anybody want a new adaptation?!

I fear it will be as dreadful as the latest Persuasion where they used terms like “ex”, went all woke (I prefer accurate casting, so shoot me) and had ratings out of 10 and had Anne Elliot carrying a fucking rabbit around. I’m still angry about it, and don’t have hopes for the new one. Emma Corrin has been dreadful in everything I’ve seen, I can’t see her as Lizzie

Really don’t like Emma Corrin, I feel she overacts. I won’t be watching.

Anything’s going to be better than the one with Colin Firth being truly awful as Darcy. Never seen a thing that seemed more of a joke. Ghastly.

All good points 😃. I had similar thoughts about some of the dresses!

I rather loved the music though! And the ball scenes were wonderful!

Now you come to mention it, Judi Dench does look like she has just returned from a fortnight in the Bahamas! 😆. I was concentrating on the speech so much in that tumultuous latter scene between her and Lizzie that I couldn’t pin down what was bothering me about it!

There were some marvellous minor performances though; Kelly Reilly of Yellowstone fame as Caroline Bingley, Penelope Wilton as Mrs Gardiner, and Claudie Blakly as Charlotte Lucas. The actress who played “you have delighted us long enough” Mary was perfectly cast too!

Agree with HarryVanderspeigle
that there are so many stories to mine further for another adaptation, such as Mrs Bennett’s, that there is really no need for yet another straightforward version, especially when the previous two still stand up well today!

I’d love to know how everything turned out with Charlotte Lucas for example? And what happened to Lady Catherine de Burgh’s ailing daughter after her mother died?

What I hated about the P&P movie was the way they made the Bennett’s look like farmers. A pig running through the house was ridiculous. This was the resident family of Meryton FFS. The BBC adaptation is completely perfect EXCEPT for Alison Steadman’s overacting (not sorry). Can’t imagine Olivia Coleman will do anything except play herself

Colin did take stiff and taciturn rather to heart it has to be said!

Aw Colin Firth was great! He went from stiff and shouty to a softie through the series, something not easy when filming scenes out of order. When Lizzie is crying in the inn and he raises his hand to his mouth in digress 🤤 then the way he looks at her boobs as she plays piano his with sister - perfection!

I thought Colin Firth was great as Darcy. I’m rewatching at the moment. Again.

I didn’t mind that so much, as I thought the interiors were wonderfully designed. That particular scene with Donald Sutherland reminded me of those Regency paintings of pigs! And everyone would have lived much closer to nature and their food sources back then.

I am with you all the way regarding Alison Steadman though. The director should have reined her in; she came across like a coarse washerwoman!

Alison Steadman absolutely nailed Mrs Bennet. Mrs Bennet IS awful and you should experience the embarrassment of her behaviour and be annoyed at her hysterical behaviour just like Darcy is. If Mrs Bennet is portrayed sympathetically ( Brenda Blethyn) then Darcy is an irredeemable snob and deeply narcissistic. He is not. One of them has to be an awful person, either Mrs Bennet or Mr Darcy for the story to work.

Olivia Coleman does awful brilliantly, I’m thinking of her as the stepmother in Fleabag. Can’t wait to see what she does with Mrs Bennet.

And to add that this is something Alison Steadman masters, making you experience the emotions of the characters. If you’re not comfortable with feeling uncomfortable then definitely avoid Abigail’s Party where her performance as Beverley will have you cringing in second hand embarrassment for her poor husband Lawrence and makes the ending totally believable.

Thinking about accurate casting, if the producers wanted a production based on blind casting, they could’ve done a modern retelling of P&P and not claim it’s a retake. The blind casting is because of Bridgerton but that was its own storyline. This is too much of a clash with the inimitable 90’s version, which mostly stayed true to the novel written in the late 18th / early 19th c.

Emma Corin was fine as Diana but she’s definitely no Lizzy Bennett.

Really not sure about Olivia Coleman. She’s herself in most things and for the most part I enjoy her as a mostly down to earth sweary woman but that’s not Mrs Bennett who is a self centred, vain, oblivious and spoiled woman who must have her daughters married primarily as a reflection on herself. Absolutely thought Alison Steadman nailed the role right down to the smirks.

Emma Corrin was OK as Diana - I could have cried with the pain of watching Lady Chatterley’s lover though. The Lover was sexy AF though

Alison Steadman was faithful to "book" Mrs Bennett I think. She really is awful. Brenda Blethyn did an interesting portrayal of a woman who actually realises how perilous their position is because they will lose Longbourn at some point, unlike her amiably detached husband, but it isn't the character JA wrote. (IMO)

I agree- I liked the less pantomime nature of it, especially Mrs Bennet. She was made ridiculous in the BBC version, but actually her concerns, and frustration at Mr B for refusing to act to help address the whole inheritance issue, are totally understandable.

I’ve watched both this weekend and I think there’s a happy medium to be found between Alison Steadman and Brenda Blethyn.

I thoroughly enjoyed both though the BBC one had the edge for me. The scenery in the film version was gorgeous, straight out of Constable’s paintings.

Liked the leads in both (though Colin Firth as Darcy was gorgeous) but preferred Mr Bennet and Mr Collins in the BBC version. David Bamber was wonderfully oleaginous and full of himself.

They’re only just filming so it’s going to be years

agree about Coleman. What a bore

I had no problems with Alison Steadman as mrs. Bennett, I really enjoyed her acting.

Instagram fed me a little bit of behind-the-scenes creeper footage of Jack Lowden as Darcy. We are going to be fine. Mind you I would do anything for a man in Georgian clothing and a pair of boots.

Longbourn does have a home farm, though, and Mr Bennet clearly has some involvement in running it. The family carriage horses are also the farm horses, and when Jane is invited to Netherfield to dine with the Bingley sisters, and Mrs Bennet is angling for her to have to stay overnight, she asks him whether the carriage horses aren’t needed on the farm that day, and Mr B says they’re needed on the farm much more often than he can get them.

Having pigs running around the house was silly, admittedly.

Oh! me too. Men never looked sexier than in those clothes!

Johnny Flynn getting dressed in Emma is one of my top three erotic moments in film.

🥵

I, ll have to check that out....!