pride and prejudice, massacred

just went to see it. am so shocked, appalled, distraught. i have been like a small child with the prospect of cadbury's overdose for a week, walked into the cinema with a delicious buzz of expectation and an eagerly beating heart (i freely admit to being a loser), clutching my popcorn between sweaty hands. walked out with the words 'load of wank' ringing in my ears.

where to begin? firstly, the utter lazyness of the history, from start to finish. with no useful purpose, they ignored basic historical truths, from the shocking fringe of keira knightly, to the accurate portrayal of the monetary status of the bennets, to the ridiculousness of having someone call once in the middle of the night (to have the door opened by the entire family with not a servant in sight) and be offered tea. who at that period said 'tea', let alone offered it? surely bohea or ratafia… i'm sorry, no matter how much the bennets struggle financially, in no way did they live in a glorified farm, tripping over pigs and geese on the way to one of their endless walks.

there were marriage proposals in the middle of breakfast, a mother whose entire scheming charm was lost in the obviousness of her chararisation (the wit is in her scheming to leave the couples alone, not in her crudely forcing the family from the room), married couples sleeping in the same bed to really make us realise that yes – mr and mrs bennet are married. why turn the lovely coldness of mr bennet into anodyne, over-expressed mush? why place his relationship with lizzy into the forefront at the end, thus putting his change of character over the changes experienced by lizzy and darcy? why fuck with the austen's narrative structure, which is so perfect and clear a child could follow it? the scripwriter cut and cut, which i accept is necessary in a film, only to replace with her own badly-worded, trite, meaningless fluff. did they think someone could write better dialogue than austen? why cut the greatest speeches? where did the sexual tension go? lizzy was dull, dull, dull, all her wit and cleverness smothered behind keira's enormous gums. also, jane was not nearly sweet enough, there was too little difference marking her and lizzy apart. wickham barely appeared, so the villain aspect, the heroism of darcy, disappeared in an asthmatic splutter.

some of it i liked. the three younger girls were wonderful, and the emphasis on their youth was interesting. darcy was also interesting, the way they turned his coldness into an expression of shyness. collins was great.

that was all that was worthwhile in an otherwise pointless, emotion-free waste of 8 quid.

also, did no one notice that donald sutherland's teeth were shining like beacons? surely that is the whole point of airbrushing.

: 19 Sep 2005 00:43 |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem