~~~sorry, this is my third post in as many days. it's my review for the film pride and prejudice which I wrote, like, a month ago. it's probably no good - I haven't read it since, but it was written to be published so I'll puiblish it. so there.~~
“I was on the internet within minutes registering my disgust”
(Pride and prejudice: a review)
..OK so not minutes, hours and maybe days before I can transfer this online, but it will be done. And it’s written minutes from coming back from the cinema, while I have the time, inclination and happiness to write it (yes, baby, I’m feeling good). And like a true geek, I’m sitting here at my laptop, with ready meal and coffee (well.. ready meal because I prepared it earlier and coffee being ginkgobiloba tea with milk and honey.. mmmMMmmm) Typing away late into the night.
So here it is, folks, THE pride and prejudice review:
This film is 99%perfect. To begin with here we have an oxymoron. Perfect is a superlative and therefore cannot be measured because it is a measure in itself. Now we will follow with a paradox: its 1% imperfection lies in the fact that it is perfect. Too good. There are two problems with this film’s perfection: the first is that it is TOO easy. If you like to be spoon fed Jane Austen, this film is for you, those with even a single brain cell to rub together will probably find it a teensy bit dull, but maybe I’ve just seen the other version too many times and know what is just around the corner. The second problem is that it isn’t true! Oh heartbreak. By the “Liz and Darcy stop mooning around and get down to some lovin’’ scene my ‘love-longing’ had (almost) died down because it is just too good to be true, the love, the “I couldn’t sleep” “neither could I” in stressed and near heartbroken voices on a misty moor at 5am was just too nice an idea, and too painful for a sadly romantic and hopeless girl to take.
As for the rest, the film is more than a remake of the BBC “look at Colin firth dripping wet in his underwear” version; it’s an edited clone. The company could have saved time and money by just cutting down the six hour version to two hours, seeing as the settings, costumes and even actors often resembled those of, for want of a better word, we shall call the ‘original’. Plus, as so often happens in remakes, the director has tried to be original, not by changing the book's plot in a different way, but by changing the film’s plot further, so that the audience members who were in doubt as to whether the first version followed the book faithfully leave believing that it did. Plus, of course, we have further modernisations. The women are more confident, cleverer and generally hold our modern day feminist views far more than Austen’s original characters or their counterparts would have, and therefore we as a modern day feminist audience can call ‘right on sister’ as Liz thinks up a witty and cutting remark and doesn’t think twice of uttering it to a man way above her station. The language is inevitably modernised and contracted in un-Austen-like ways so that not only are obvious plot lines emphasized to us by the close up of a single tear running from Jane’s smooth and gorgeous cheek, or of Darcy’s throbbing crotch, but the language not spoon fed but cut up and put in a blender so we can take it in through a straw. And despite the distinct and highly conspicuous lack of Mathew McFayden throwing himself in a lake and walking around dripping in his white underwear, the sexual references are rather more than modest. We have zoom in shots of pigs’ bollocks, close ups on statues’ smooth and shapely arses, and rather more pert and obvious busts than I believe would have appeared in the balls of Austen’s time (except, of course for Kiera Knightley’s which, as ever, is rather purposefully uninspiring and complimented by with some facial modifications to make her the ‘unconventionally attractive’ ordinary girl; a look that she retains for the entire film until the famous ‘get on and snog him’ scene already alluded to when, despite her sleepless confusion and longing to get off with Mr D she remembers to apply makeup before going for her frustrated morning walk in the mist).
But despite these complaints, I have to confess that it is the hopeless romantic in me that wins. I loved the film almost as much as I did Colin firth.. I mean the original five years ago. The plot, as far as I’m concerned, if not faithful to the novel, is faithful to Austen’s ideas and political commentary, the updates are only to help explain such to a modern audience. The spoon feeding became a little tiresome, but sometimes we all like a little easy nourishment, and I’m a sucker for cheap sentiment.
PLUS Mathew McFayden is knee-wobblingly, finger-lickin’ gorgeous and carries off the strong sarcasm and frustrated self-denying loving look perfectly. Swoon x100. There are plenty of nice high busts for the male or lesbian audience, some breathtaking scenery that almost makes up for Mr McFayden not throwing himself in the lake (there is even a lake supplied – I don’t know what the director was thinking!), nice music, plenty of nice little montage/slow motion scenes and, of course, the perfect love story. I think Charl would say it’s lacking in the subconscious aspect, and I think that’s the main problem. But if you’ve seen the BBC version, then all this is is that with added breasts, pigs’ balls, short dialogue… oh yes, and Olando Bloom.
**I realise this will make sense to exactly no one. Meh, at least I wrote it. I’m going for the crass reviewer style but I don’t think I’ve done it very well. PLUS between beginning to write it at half ten and now which is half midnight I’ve eaten my pre-prepared pan haggety plus the other half of the 150g bar of fruit and nut fair trade co op chocolate, drunk my ginkgobiloba with honey and soya milk tea, had a deep and revealing conversation with Aline about our respective families, got all giggly over our lemon and honey hot drinks, tried to persuade Bruce to corrupt his 14 year old sister, put up with Aline slagging off Matthew Mc Fayden because of his sideburns and ‘big long coat’ (what could be better? Swoon times 1000!) and then finally returned to finish this. SO.. a fulfilling night all round. And I’m working on Lothian Road again tomorrow morning. Hooray!
I still miss having you attractive, entertaining, intelligent and lovely people around though. There really is no one like ‘our gang’ I think. Oh well.
