Pride & Prejudice (2005)

jelewis8 — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 20:07:46 +0000

What was I doing? I was in a theatre waiting for Pride & Prejudice to begin. Why? The answer involves two convincing girl friends who made it seem as if it would be an afternoon of ribald mockery of the screen. Still, I couldn’t help suspecting that there would be little opportunity for me to lay to waste the dramatic stylings of Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet.
True to my expectations, the film was not adventurous in its exploration of Jane Austen’s original (and oft-adapted) novel. Sticking to the tried, if not very true, use of period production sets and costumes, and slightly updating the language so modern users won’t fall over dead in their seats from vocabulary-induced aneurisms, director Joe Wright and writer Deborah Moggach don’t trust their movie to be viewed as anything other than another costumed drama. For this reason, it does not stand out.
The tale, for those who never made it past tenth grade, is about the five Bennet girls, low in social estate but high on dreams of marrying a man–any man, as long as he’s monied and dashing (not to mention forgiving and generous). Jane (Rosamund Pike) and Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) are the older, more intelligent, and frankly, more watchable of the sisters. Jena Malone and Carey Mulligan play Lydia and Kitty respectively, but they do little but giggle and whine and annoy their family, friends, neighbours, not to mention the theatre audience. Mary Bennet (Talulah Riley) is barely visible as the bookish sister who thinks its all a lot of foolishness.
When the fabulously rich Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods), his saucy minx of a sister Caroline (Kelly Reilly) and the dower, constipated Mr. Darcy (Matthew MacFadyen) arrive in the neighbourhood, all bets are off as the girls use their Georgian charm to attract the men’s attentions. Before long, Jane seems fated to be Mr. Bingley’s bride, whilst Mr. Darcy does his best to show that he is a man whose dislike of all things interesting is only surpassed by Elizabeth’s dislike of him. She finds him pompous, odious, a master manipulator who proves time and again he is unworthy of anyone’s affections. But somehow, love floats through the air like the winds of England, and before long, the pride and prejudice of all are tested and tried, secrets revealed, and values of friendship and integrity are tempered with growing affection.
Keira Knightley proves she can hold the screen, despite her amped, modern smile that charmed audiences in Bend It Like Beckham. It threatens to give the game away at times, but she seems to remember that she is not a fifteen year old modern soccer player, and so squelches it in a performance that is both broadly characteristic of a generic Elizabeth Bennet, and unique in her dramatic poise. Rosamund Pike is likeable and easy on the eyes. Matthew MacFadyen is a suitable Darcy, but his swagger is sometimes laughable. Simon Woods is unaccountably twitchy, and Donald Sutherland, playing Mr. Bennet, at times lapses into an accent that would seem more at home in the Deep South rather than Hartfordshire.
What is disappointing is the lack of real innovation. The script is passable, but much of the original has been slightly altered for no real apparent purpose. The direction is uninspired, though the sets and costumes are stunning. Even the payoff is a dreary, uninteresting spectacle, and there are moments that are positively purple in their overindulgence.
This is a film for the true Jane Austen fan, for she will appreciate the good points it has to offer. Anyone else will wither. And by anyone else, I mean me.
Fringe Rating: out of 5

Global Warming Alert

jelewis8 — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:31:34 +0000

D’you ever notice how warm weather brings out the best and worst in women’s fashions? I’m not talking about runway shows featuring women wearing feathered boas or candy-striped trash cans or leather S&M-wear posing as pajamas…no, I’m referring to every day women’s fashion, the kind that makes some (most) guys turn and look twice and three times, just in case a vital piece of that clothing should suddenly find itself wanting in tensile strength and snap, leaving its wearer the subject of what can only be accurately described as “going to school naked” syndrome…a girl’s worst nightmare, a guy’s best dream, or something else entirely?
No, of course you don’t notice these things. You’re either a woman yourself and somehow unaware that these colorful and nearly nonexistent fabrics fashion designers call (and charge small countries’ GDP’s for) clothes, are actually being used in quantum physics experiments to see just how small particles can be reduced to; or, you are a woman-respecting, sexually-healthy, avert-mine-eyes-oh-Lord kind of guy who appears to be reading a magazine about Luxembourg trade politics when a gaggle (or is it a google?) of college women traipse by in the most skin-baring outfits they can dig out of their fabric-shrinking closets.
Call me enthusiastically bitter, but I can’t help but wonder just what God intended when he gave us sex drives. On the one hand, the experience of seeing 50% of the population in all the glory of their blooming gardens walking about in the radiance of an early Spring sun is enough to cause one to convert from an atheist to a God-thankin’, red-blooded MAN. On the other, you have to worry about the rapid increases in global climate each year. And I’m not talking about the weather.
It may seem odd that I’m writing this on a cold, miserable, grey, and rainy day in April, but my anticipation of the months to come is hardly deniable, not the least of which is due to a pre-screening I was privy to last week, when I made an unscheduled, unintended auto tour of the Virginia Tech campus. I may have written this before, but I have to reiterate my firm belief that God gave man college campuses as universal epicenters for the proliferation of female hotness.
Being not particularly concerned with global warming, I’m completely in favour of current and future advances in both fashion and quantum physics, nor am I worried that the fusion of the two fields has given us a world in which midriffs and thighs are now noticeably more visible than, oh say, that Mack truck that’s about to hit you because you stopped in the middle of the intersection to stare…DRIVE!!!!
Though maybe I should be.
I’m not misogynistic, nor am I a hedonist. I am all in favour of limiting the amount of skin the fairer sex may show in public. After all, public safety is necessary in a civilized society. But there’s always that pressing conflict: aesthetic appreciation versus lust.
At what point in my looking have I stepped over the line from Song of Solomon Romanticism into raging, flesh-obsessed, sex machine? Where does acknowledgement of the beauty of the female form end and the desire to “get it on” begin? Honestly, I have no friggin’ clue.
I’ve prayed about it (being a God-fearin’ but curve-lovin’ guy) and have yet to receive an answer or an indication. So the age-old story begins anew…Mostly though, this was just a way of relieving the agony of enduring yet another cold and rainy day, proving that Blacksburg is one of those places in the world where Winter maintains a stubborn hold.
Me, I’ve got to get to work reading more about the fascinating field of quantum physics. If I look hard enough, I might just find what I’m looking for.

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Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Global Warming Alert