Death Comes to Pemberley, or at least the BBC
I started reading Death Comes to Pemberley a few years back, and stopped just a few pages in: P.D. James is the sort of author I tend to admire more than love, and her Jane Austen tone felt off to me. But I was kinda curious about what actually happened in it, so when the BBC series popped up on Netflix I gave it a try.
My response?
Uhh.....
There's some good stuff in Death Comes to Pemberley, almost all of it in the background. Which is to say, the sets, magnificent. The shots of various people running through the woods looking for ghosts and murdered people and things carved into trees, also magnificent. The carriages and the horses? Yay. The costumes, mostly yay.
And then there's the foreground.
The chief problem with Death Comes to Pemberley is that it has no idea what, exactly, it is. A murder mystery? Kinda - someone is murdered, and that's...sorta dreary, and then the show kinda wanders to other things, and then there's an inquest, and then a trial that repeats a lot of stuff about the inquest, and then a last minute rescue that has a decided feel of an old Wild West movie to it. It would probably help if the "previously on Death Comes to Pemberley" bits didn't manage to be a dead giveaway, pun intended, for the third episode.
Is it a Jane Austen/Gothic mashup? Well, kinda, except that this was done before, by Jane Austen herself, and in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice which suddenly decided that the best way to make P&P accessible to modern audiences was to make it a mashup of P&P and Wuthering Heights, and, to be more fair to that film than I usually am, actually managed more fidelity to the original plot and a tighter focus on the social/economic issues involved.
Speaking of those, is it a commentary on the social/economic issues? Well, kinda: there's a lot of stuff about trials and so on. There's some stuff about marrying for family and a few reminders of just how unsuitable Darcy and Elizabeth's marriage was and the fallout from that. Jane Austen lived on the edges of high society - one brother was a diplomat; a sister-in-law a countess, but she herself never had money, and her books display constant awareness of this, and multiple takedowns (especially in Emma and Persuasion) of the upper classes.
This show ends with a nice member of the working classes making the utmost sacrifice to make absolutely sure that the upper classes are going to be just ok.
Is it a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, letting us know what happened to Elizabeth and Darcy and other characters? Well, kinda, but here is where the show really starts falling into problems, especially with minor characters. Most of the P&P characters go entirely unmentioned, with Jane making only a few brief appearances and Bingley not speaking at all. His sisters never appear. An offhand reference assures us that Mary got married off, and ends there; no info about her husband or status; Kitty is never mentioned. And Lydia is just mindboggling. She starts off the film in hysterics - something the original character seemed too callous to ever do; retreats to her silly self, which is fine, and then, at the end, suddenly displays loyalty, wisdom, insight and intelligence like where did this come from? I tend to think that Lydia in P&P is slightly more intelligent than other characters give her credit for - she makes a couple of pointed and correct jabs in Elizabeth's direction - but only slightly, but in any case, by starting off by presenting this films completely fails to lead up to that moment, and just feels false in every direction.
And speaking of false - this may arguably be the greatest misreading of Colonel Fitzwilliam ever, changing him from the amiable if somewhat directionless military officer clueless about the very limited opportunities for women into a near villain. It's....awful. The entire point of Colonel Fitzwilliam in P&P is to be a relatively decent guy so that Elizabeth will find him credible, a point missed here.
Is it a comedy? Well, it has two funny scenes: one involving Mrs. Bennet, and one involving Lady Catherine. In three hours.
But although the film doesn't actually manage to be any of these things, it seems to want to be all of them - thus the awkward lurching between Gothic, attempted social commentary and sudden "Oh, wait! This is P&P fanfiction! Summon Lady Catherine!" Which in the end makes it a major mess. And, on a fairly cruel note, there's Anna Maxwell Martin, who is good, but for reasons of makeup/lighting whatever her age looks far too old. She might not be. But this seems to take place about six to at the most ten years after Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth and Darcy have a son who seems to be about four or five, possibly younger, and although Elizabeth seems comfortable in the house and Lady Catherine is talking to her, she's still relying on Georgiana for some fairly basic info and hasn't learned most of the local legends, and expecting her second child. Georgiana and Lydia, 16 in Pride and Prejudice appear to be in their early twenties. Jane, 21 or 22, appears to be in her mid to late twenties. Elizabeth, who states in Pride and Prejudice that she is not one and twenty, looks to be in her mid-thirties, possibly her early 40s, aging decades to everyone else's few years. And she just doesn't sparkle that much - but I guess that's what happens when you thought you were in a social comedy but find out that you're actually in the middle of something that wants to be Gothic, but isn't.
My response?
Uhh.....
There's some good stuff in Death Comes to Pemberley, almost all of it in the background. Which is to say, the sets, magnificent. The shots of various people running through the woods looking for ghosts and murdered people and things carved into trees, also magnificent. The carriages and the horses? Yay. The costumes, mostly yay.
And then there's the foreground.
The chief problem with Death Comes to Pemberley is that it has no idea what, exactly, it is. A murder mystery? Kinda - someone is murdered, and that's...sorta dreary, and then the show kinda wanders to other things, and then there's an inquest, and then a trial that repeats a lot of stuff about the inquest, and then a last minute rescue that has a decided feel of an old Wild West movie to it. It would probably help if the "previously on Death Comes to Pemberley" bits didn't manage to be a dead giveaway, pun intended, for the third episode.
Is it a Jane Austen/Gothic mashup? Well, kinda, except that this was done before, by Jane Austen herself, and in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice which suddenly decided that the best way to make P&P accessible to modern audiences was to make it a mashup of P&P and Wuthering Heights, and, to be more fair to that film than I usually am, actually managed more fidelity to the original plot and a tighter focus on the social/economic issues involved.
Speaking of those, is it a commentary on the social/economic issues? Well, kinda: there's a lot of stuff about trials and so on. There's some stuff about marrying for family and a few reminders of just how unsuitable Darcy and Elizabeth's marriage was and the fallout from that. Jane Austen lived on the edges of high society - one brother was a diplomat; a sister-in-law a countess, but she herself never had money, and her books display constant awareness of this, and multiple takedowns (especially in Emma and Persuasion) of the upper classes.
This show ends with a nice member of the working classes making the utmost sacrifice to make absolutely sure that the upper classes are going to be just ok.
Is it a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, letting us know what happened to Elizabeth and Darcy and other characters? Well, kinda, but here is where the show really starts falling into problems, especially with minor characters. Most of the P&P characters go entirely unmentioned, with Jane making only a few brief appearances and Bingley not speaking at all. His sisters never appear. An offhand reference assures us that Mary got married off, and ends there; no info about her husband or status; Kitty is never mentioned. And Lydia is just mindboggling. She starts off the film in hysterics - something the original character seemed too callous to ever do; retreats to her silly self, which is fine, and then, at the end, suddenly displays loyalty, wisdom, insight and intelligence like where did this come from? I tend to think that Lydia in P&P is slightly more intelligent than other characters give her credit for - she makes a couple of pointed and correct jabs in Elizabeth's direction - but only slightly, but in any case, by starting off by presenting this films completely fails to lead up to that moment, and just feels false in every direction.
And speaking of false - this may arguably be the greatest misreading of Colonel Fitzwilliam ever, changing him from the amiable if somewhat directionless military officer clueless about the very limited opportunities for women into a near villain. It's....awful. The entire point of Colonel Fitzwilliam in P&P is to be a relatively decent guy so that Elizabeth will find him credible, a point missed here.
Is it a comedy? Well, it has two funny scenes: one involving Mrs. Bennet, and one involving Lady Catherine. In three hours.
But although the film doesn't actually manage to be any of these things, it seems to want to be all of them - thus the awkward lurching between Gothic, attempted social commentary and sudden "Oh, wait! This is P&P fanfiction! Summon Lady Catherine!" Which in the end makes it a major mess. And, on a fairly cruel note, there's Anna Maxwell Martin, who is good, but for reasons of makeup/lighting whatever her age looks far too old. She might not be. But this seems to take place about six to at the most ten years after Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth and Darcy have a son who seems to be about four or five, possibly younger, and although Elizabeth seems comfortable in the house and Lady Catherine is talking to her, she's still relying on Georgiana for some fairly basic info and hasn't learned most of the local legends, and expecting her second child. Georgiana and Lydia, 16 in Pride and Prejudice appear to be in their early twenties. Jane, 21 or 22, appears to be in her mid to late twenties. Elizabeth, who states in Pride and Prejudice that she is not one and twenty, looks to be in her mid-thirties, possibly her early 40s, aging decades to everyone else's few years. And she just doesn't sparkle that much - but I guess that's what happens when you thought you were in a social comedy but find out that you're actually in the middle of something that wants to be Gothic, but isn't.