Review: Pride and Prejudice (2005)

I never thought I would re-watch or review this travesty. But reviewing the infinitely-better 1995 version put me in a P+P mood, and one of my friends was raving about it, so common sense deserted me and I began to watch it again.

I had a great time watching it. I roared with laughter at every scene. By the time the credits rolled I had a stitch in my side.

There's only one problem. It isn't meant to be funny.

There's such a long list of recognisable actors that you'd expect the film would be good.
Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean) as Lizzie. (Yes, really! And she's exactly as unsuited to the role as you'd think!)
Matthew Macfadyen (Arthur in Little Dorrit) as Mr. Darcy. (Another inexplicable casting choice.)
Rosamund Pike (Lady Harriett in Wives and Daughters) as Jane
Carey Mulligan (Ada in Bleak House 2005) as Kitty
Simon Woods (Dr. Harrison in Cranford) as Bingley
Claudie Blakley (Martha in Cranford) as Charlotte
Tom Hollander (Osborne in Wives and Daughters, and Cutler Beckett in Pirates of the Caribbean) as Mr. Collins (!)
Rupert Friend (Prince Albert in The Young Victoria) as Wickham
Judi Dench (Miss Matty in Cranford) as Lady Catherine (!!)
Penelope Wilton (Mrs. Hamley in Wives and Daughters) as Mrs. Gardiner
Peter Wight (Mr. Wilfer in Our Mutual Friend 1998) as Mr. Gardiner
Donald Sutherland (the evil president in The Hunger Games whose name I can't remember and can't be bothered to look up) as Mr. Bennet
Jena Malone (that obnoxious brat in The Hunger Games -- it should be obvious by now that I don't care much about The Hunger Games) as Lydia

That's a pretty long list of (mostly) good actors. As for the film itself, I'll let Mr. Banks sum up this sorry spectacle.

From the opening scene it's obvious that the director didn't even read the book. The Bennets live on a farm. A farm that appears to be falling to pieces, no less. Mr. Bennet is a mumbling dotard, Mrs. Bennet is a pretty normal woman and nothing like the hilarious harpy of the book, and Lizzie is... Keira Knightley.

Brief tangent here: I've never had a high opinion of Keira Knightley. She's one of those actresses who only ever seem capable of one facial expression, and never show much emotion no matter how dramatic the situation is. Take her (lack of) acting in Curse of the Black Pearl, especially in the scene where Elizabeth has been captured by the ghost pirates. Anyone in their right mind would be visibly terrified. But Elizabeth gives her ultimatum then holds the medallion over the ship's side while showing all the emotion of a cabbage. Her "acting" is exactly the same here.

Things get progressively worse from there.

The ball where Elizabeth first meets Darcy bears a striking resemblance to a barn dance. Caroline Bingley wears the most anachronistic outfit I've seen outside of Mozart! das Musical. Mr. Bingley is an imbecile. In fact, I seriously wondered at first if Simon Woods was deliberately playing him as... mentally deficient, shall we say. It's especially jarring because I'd watched Cranford shortly before this film. His acting there is a thousand times better.

Darcy is pathetic. If I hadn't seen Little Dorrit, I'd have thought Matthew Macfadyen was a hopelessly wooden actor. This Darcy doesn't have the pride that Darcy is supposed to have, and his insult to Lizzie lacks all the impact it has in the book. Here, Lizzie is eavesdropping from under... a flight of stairs?, and he didn't know she could hear him.

Jane is the one character who's fairly similar to their book counterpart. But that just makes me feel sorry for her, because she doesn't deserve to be married to an idiot like this Bingley.

I held out some hope that things would improve when Mr. Collins appeared. Tom Hollander is a great actor, even though he's not the first name that would come to mind if I was asked to cast Mr. Collins. But no. He's the next one to fall victim to what I've dubbed "the Joe Wright curse". It's a malady that affects even good actors, reducing them to wooden acting and unconvincing characters, usually brought on by a terrible director.

I didn't expect this Mr. Collins to be the obsequious oil slick David Bamber so brilliantly made him. I just hoped that he would be as foolish and comical as in the book. Instead Mr. Collins is a flat, emotionless non-entity who's as funny as cold soup. His proposal (which for some reason happens at the breakfast table. Couldn't make this up if I tried!) is the worst thing I've seen for months. I didn't know if I should laugh or cringe. 🤷

On and on the film drags with no end in sight. We go straight from one event to the next without time to process what's just happened. Wickham is introduced, then disappears almost for the rest of the story. Charlotte and Mr. Collins get married. Lizzie meets Lady Catherine.

Judi Dench is a magnificent actress. If you need any proof, just watch Cranford. But she isn't Lady Catherine. No one but Barbara Leigh-Hunt will ever be Lady Catherine.

Surely Darcy's first proposal will be fairly accurate to the book? Surely not even this incompetent director could make a mess of it? HAHAHA no. If there's one thing this film has taught me, it's that things will always get worse.

Lizzie learns of Darcy's interference in Jane and Bingley's romance from an unconvincing Colonel Fitzwilliam. So far so good, right? Wrong. For some reason he tells her this in church, while he's sitting beside her. Wrong. Col. Fitzwilliam is Lady Catherine's nephew, and so he -- and Darcy, and Anne de Burgh -- would have sat with her in the family pew. Lizzie, meanwhile, would have sat with Charlotte in a different pew. Instead, Lady Catherine is sitting on her own, Darcy is sitting on his own, Anne de Burgh is nowhere to be seen, and the Colonel is sitting with Lizzie, who isn't sitting with Charlotte. Argh! *makes sounds of inarticulate rage*

Anyway, Lizzie storms off (in the middle of the service?). In the rain. To a building a long way from the church. And then Darcy appears out of nowhere to propose. It ends with them screaming at each other. Then we get a really weird scene of Lizzie apparently sleep-walking when Darcy arrives in the middle of the night to give her his letter. 😖

The film drags on even longer. Lydia runs away with Wickham, something that has absolutely no emotional impact in this version and doesn't matter anyway because the whole thing's cleared up in five minutes. Lady Catherine arrives in the middle of the night?! to have her argument with Lizzie, then Darcy and Lizzie meet in their nightclothes (😕), he proposes and speaks to her father, the end. Finally! But after all that, they didn't even show us the wedding? 😑

Some films exist only to remind viewers that any idiot can make a movie nowadays -- and worse, make a popular movie that many otherwise-sensible people rave about. This is one of those films. I wouldn't mind so much if it hadn't butchered a brilliant novel. Watch this film only if you need something to laugh at.

Is it available online?: Who cares?

Rating: 1/10.