Movie review: Pride and Prejudice
So today we went to see the movie Pride and Prejudice. All was well, other than the fact that I had to be dragged out of a nap, but in retrospect, it was quite worth my time to try to relive my high school days.
The Book
The book itself has long been, interestingly, the only love story that I've enjoyed. There's something special about that I have yet to figure out. I read it back in high school (as I mentioned earlier), in early second semester of tenth grade. We still had the self-proclaimed Queen of Evil as our English teacher (two years running then, which would later become three out of four), but the enjoyment of good literature cannot truly be squashed even by the nastiest instructor. I read P&P before I ever experience falling in love, personally, although it's interesting to note that I did soon after (ironically, as we were reading Lord of the Flies). I've been meaning to re-read it since the end of my HS junior year, but I still haven't gotten around to it...*sigh*. It's an excellent book, with some of the coolest language (yes, it's much easier to read than some crikey like The Handmaid's Tale or In the Lake of the Woods or The Great Gatsby, in my opinion) and one of the best plots I've enjoyed so far (and I usually find love stories lame, matchmakers -meh-, and troubled love tiresome), despite its pretty great length (about 60 chapters, each with decent size). I looked forward to reliving at least part of the joy that this book had brought me years ago, back when I was still in Florida, back when I was still in high school, back when.........
The Movie
The movie was somewhat of a disappointment. Well, I did have my own (possiby high) hopes for it, but I'd say they were pretty reasonable.
One of the scenes that disappointed was the argument between Darcy and Elizabeth, in which "pride" was mentioned (in appropriate 'reverse form', so to speak) but not "prejudice". The wording (especially it being reversely applied) there was key; I was quite surprised that the scriptwriters missed that feature. Not to mention that it was severly cropped, even though it was one of the most important scenes in the story, including the famous line "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." (And I thought it took place indoors, did it not? Maybe I'm misremembering, but I think I remember picturing that scene quite well, probably because it was my favorite scene.)
Another was the ending, which ended up with a scene involving an excessive amount of kissing (I am most definitely not a fan of kissing scenes, and soggy romance in general), but not the expected foolish-seeming jubilant-matchmaking-mother-because-her-daughter-just-got-a-guy-who'll-have-quite-enough-money along with every one else being generally happy (except the Lady Carsehole de Bourgh, of course, but who cares about her). In my opinion, that ending focused too much on just Elizabeth and Darcy and neglected the "happily ever after" aspect of the original story.
I also felt that Darcy wasn't played very well. He seemed more simply expressionless than "proud" (not to mention strangely reminiscent of a certain portrait of Beethoven), and I think I could have played him better if not for the fact that I personally look ugly and generally not attractive. His speaking style seemed more affected and awkward and dismissive (which was probably somewhat appropriate, but not to the extent displayed) than filled with "pride" and arrogance.
The acting was mixed. While, as I said above, Darcy's character wasn't brought out too well. However, Lydie was nicely portrayed as Lydiot (no less, by Jena Malone, who years earlier played the young Ellie Arroway in Contact, not that I know much about who she is, but whatever, just side comment), and Judi Dench brought out the haughty superiority of Lady Catherine de Bourgh very vividly. The matchmaking mother was appropriately easily swung between grief and elation, and Jane was appropriately bland in her general personality (in keeping with the story). Lizzy herself, was sadly just better than mediocre, and often acted in awkward manners a la this Mr. Darcy.
This movie may suffer from a problem similar to that which plagued an old Catch-22 movie version that I watched years ago for English class: It's too short. The book itself is replete with details, some of them rather unimportant, but the plot is still quite complex enough to easily fill a 4-hour film, if not more (by my estimates, which are of course very inexperienced and probably not reliable). Fitting them into the period of about 2 hours requires the omission of some details and/or the compression of others, and it requires a lot of skill to produce a great work from that, even if that is possible (which it may sometimes not be). But even so, there were quite many time-wasting scenes--fading in, fading out, Lizzy on the swing for forever(?), etc., that could have been time used to contribute more usefully to the plot.
The soundtrack, however, did not disappoint. It was, although probably nowhere near the best soundtrack ever, well more than adequate, and provided the mood for the scenes excellently. I liked how the composer (whose name I unfortunately didn't catch in the credits) used a leitmotif in this soundtrack. There was also that other theme that I swear was written by some well-known composer whom I can't recall--it goes like this:
3/4 time
[some interesting arpeggiation of a D minor chord for one bar, ending in a d]
d-e=f g=f=e=d cs
a-d=f a=f-d bf
g-c=e g=e-c a
....[can't remeber the rest]
Anyone know what that is, and how it goes?
Other comments
More than once I've been tempted to do something about that Facebook group "Hopeless Romantics In Search of Mr. Darcy". I'm a guy, and of course, it wouldn't do me much good to join it outright. Thing is, though, I've always admired something about Lizzy's and Darcy's relationship, and how it came into being as they gradually discovered each other, through some of the ironically least romantic of circumstances. While on one hand I am definitely not arrogantly upper-classy like the character Fitzwilliam Darcy, I would certainly be entertained by a girl who would engage me in a verbal battle, for example. I'm no handsome 'prince' like Darcy, of course, but...heh, it's still cool to dream. Maybe I'm looking for an "Elizabeth Bennet". Interesting thoughts; I'll have to think about their validity later (although I've thought of them many times before anyways).
As a sidenote, though, I found Mary, the 3rd Bennet daughter and the studious, quiet one, to be the most attractive of the five, personally. (An interesting comparison to how I found the nerd-girl of Chrono Trigger, Lucca, rather good-looking, and did so completely unconsciously.) That's just from this movie, though, and of course, has no bearing in the actual text; from reading the text itself, my favorite (perhaps, 'favourite'?) character is Elizabeth.
Rating: 3.5 stars (standard deviation: sigma = +/-.25 stars)
The Book
The book itself has long been, interestingly, the only love story that I've enjoyed. There's something special about that I have yet to figure out. I read it back in high school (as I mentioned earlier), in early second semester of tenth grade. We still had the self-proclaimed Queen of Evil as our English teacher (two years running then, which would later become three out of four), but the enjoyment of good literature cannot truly be squashed even by the nastiest instructor. I read P&P before I ever experience falling in love, personally, although it's interesting to note that I did soon after (ironically, as we were reading Lord of the Flies). I've been meaning to re-read it since the end of my HS junior year, but I still haven't gotten around to it...*sigh*. It's an excellent book, with some of the coolest language (yes, it's much easier to read than some crikey like The Handmaid's Tale or In the Lake of the Woods or The Great Gatsby, in my opinion) and one of the best plots I've enjoyed so far (and I usually find love stories lame, matchmakers -meh-, and troubled love tiresome), despite its pretty great length (about 60 chapters, each with decent size). I looked forward to reliving at least part of the joy that this book had brought me years ago, back when I was still in Florida, back when I was still in high school, back when.........
The Movie
The movie was somewhat of a disappointment. Well, I did have my own (possiby high) hopes for it, but I'd say they were pretty reasonable.
One of the scenes that disappointed was the argument between Darcy and Elizabeth, in which "pride" was mentioned (in appropriate 'reverse form', so to speak) but not "prejudice". The wording (especially it being reversely applied) there was key; I was quite surprised that the scriptwriters missed that feature. Not to mention that it was severly cropped, even though it was one of the most important scenes in the story, including the famous line "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." (And I thought it took place indoors, did it not? Maybe I'm misremembering, but I think I remember picturing that scene quite well, probably because it was my favorite scene.)
Another was the ending, which ended up with a scene involving an excessive amount of kissing (I am most definitely not a fan of kissing scenes, and soggy romance in general), but not the expected foolish-seeming jubilant-matchmaking-mother-because-her-daughter-just-got-a-guy-who'll-have-quite-enough-money along with every one else being generally happy (except the Lady Carsehole de Bourgh, of course, but who cares about her). In my opinion, that ending focused too much on just Elizabeth and Darcy and neglected the "happily ever after" aspect of the original story.
I also felt that Darcy wasn't played very well. He seemed more simply expressionless than "proud" (not to mention strangely reminiscent of a certain portrait of Beethoven), and I think I could have played him better if not for the fact that I personally look ugly and generally not attractive. His speaking style seemed more affected and awkward and dismissive (which was probably somewhat appropriate, but not to the extent displayed) than filled with "pride" and arrogance.
The acting was mixed. While, as I said above, Darcy's character wasn't brought out too well. However, Lydie was nicely portrayed as Lydiot (no less, by Jena Malone, who years earlier played the young Ellie Arroway in Contact, not that I know much about who she is, but whatever, just side comment), and Judi Dench brought out the haughty superiority of Lady Catherine de Bourgh very vividly. The matchmaking mother was appropriately easily swung between grief and elation, and Jane was appropriately bland in her general personality (in keeping with the story). Lizzy herself, was sadly just better than mediocre, and often acted in awkward manners a la this Mr. Darcy.
This movie may suffer from a problem similar to that which plagued an old Catch-22 movie version that I watched years ago for English class: It's too short. The book itself is replete with details, some of them rather unimportant, but the plot is still quite complex enough to easily fill a 4-hour film, if not more (by my estimates, which are of course very inexperienced and probably not reliable). Fitting them into the period of about 2 hours requires the omission of some details and/or the compression of others, and it requires a lot of skill to produce a great work from that, even if that is possible (which it may sometimes not be). But even so, there were quite many time-wasting scenes--fading in, fading out, Lizzy on the swing for forever(?), etc., that could have been time used to contribute more usefully to the plot.
The soundtrack, however, did not disappoint. It was, although probably nowhere near the best soundtrack ever, well more than adequate, and provided the mood for the scenes excellently. I liked how the composer (whose name I unfortunately didn't catch in the credits) used a leitmotif in this soundtrack. There was also that other theme that I swear was written by some well-known composer whom I can't recall--it goes like this:
3/4 time
[some interesting arpeggiation of a D minor chord for one bar, ending in a d]
d-e=f g=f=e=d cs
a-d=f a=f-d bf
g-c=e g=e-c a
....[can't remeber the rest]
Anyone know what that is, and how it goes?
Other comments
More than once I've been tempted to do something about that Facebook group "Hopeless Romantics In Search of Mr. Darcy". I'm a guy, and of course, it wouldn't do me much good to join it outright. Thing is, though, I've always admired something about Lizzy's and Darcy's relationship, and how it came into being as they gradually discovered each other, through some of the ironically least romantic of circumstances. While on one hand I am definitely not arrogantly upper-classy like the character Fitzwilliam Darcy, I would certainly be entertained by a girl who would engage me in a verbal battle, for example. I'm no handsome 'prince' like Darcy, of course, but...heh, it's still cool to dream. Maybe I'm looking for an "Elizabeth Bennet". Interesting thoughts; I'll have to think about their validity later (although I've thought of them many times before anyways).
As a sidenote, though, I found Mary, the 3rd Bennet daughter and the studious, quiet one, to be the most attractive of the five, personally. (An interesting comparison to how I found the nerd-girl of Chrono Trigger, Lucca, rather good-looking, and did so completely unconsciously.) That's just from this movie, though, and of course, has no bearing in the actual text; from reading the text itself, my favorite (perhaps, 'favourite'?) character is Elizabeth.
Rating: 3.5 stars (standard deviation: sigma = +/-.25 stars)