Pride and Prejudice

Saturday, I took my daughter to see Pride and Prejudice. It was a much better choice for us than King Kong, both because of the movie length (2 hours v. 3 hours) and because of the chick flick v. guy movie thing. I took my mom to see it yesterday.

It turns out I have never seen any version of this movie before. And I've never read the book. No, wait. To be more accurate, I can't remember having read the book. But when my daughter read it last year for her high school English class's British Author assignment, my copy of the book was marked up with underlines and circles around all the Regency-period terminology. So I must have read it during my romance-writer days, when I was thinking about writing a Regency romance. But I didn't remember the story.

So for me, the movie was brand new.

(Possible spoilers ahead, if you don't know the story)

The scenery was beautiful. It wasn't breathtaking in a Lord of the Rings/Narnia way. It had soft tree-edged meadows graced in mist, and hillsides curtained by rain. It was all that the English countryside of Jane Austen's time should be.

And the characters who filled the screen were all that Jane Austen's contemporaries should be. The men revealed their personalities from within their gentlemanly reserve--the delighted Mr. Bingley, the aloof Mr. Darcy, and the loving Mr. Bennet.

The ladies as well suited their time. Jane's quiet shyness when she was around Mr. Bingley, and the way she later said she was "quite over him" while the truth shone in her eyes, rang true. Elizabeth's outspokenness and strength of will were within the bounds of all that was proper for a young lady of good breeding.

Before I saw the movie, my office-mate told me that when she watched other versions, she found the romance between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy unbelievable, because he was rude for most of the movie and then all of a sudden she loved him. What was there to love? So I watched for that, and I didn't find it.

Instead, Mr. Darcy appeared at the first ball with his mouth set in the hard line of polite ill-mood. Over the course of the film, the line of his mouth softened. He spoke to Elizabeth. He watched her. He struggled within himself in a way that was subtle, barely perceptible to the viewer.

And Elizabeth began their acquaintance with tart questions and rather stinging comments that provoked him. Her eyes, too, revealed the change of her feelings. She cast questioning glances at him after a time, and shook them off. Her expression showed that she began to believe in his good character, until she was diasbused of that notion by Mr. Wickham. And on the rainy evening when Mr. Darcy dared to say how he felt, she let him know her disapproval of his past actions, while her eyes betrayed not dislike, not disgust, but the hurt she felt. In the end, when she told her father she loved Mr. Darcy, I believed her completely, because I saw it coming.

(End spoiler warning)

Pride and Prejudice is a beautifully made, wonderfully acted film. The Academy Awards never seem to reward subtlety--especially not for a romance--but they should. Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen both should be nominated (I'm not sure they should win), because their performances helped make this film into a true glimpse at a time in England's history when propriety was everything and love had to work at finding its way.