Pride & Prejudice (Movie Review)

Pride and Prejudice (1995) [D:Simon Langton. Jennifer Ehle, Colin Firth] The original BBC series based on Austen’s book, and still IMO the best version. The producers were given that inestimable luxury, time: the episodes add up to 5hr 23min, and for Austen fans that’s barely enough. Others may feel there are a few too many lingering shots of faces, landscapes, and of course Pemberly. Not me: I saw this when it was first broadcast on PBS, and later the edited version released on DVD for A&E, barely 5 hours long.
     Pride and Prejudice is the love romance that defined the genre. The match is “impossible”, but love and a healthy dose of financial realism conquer all, and we know in our bones that Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy will have a great marriage. They are in all respects equals; and most importantly, they respect as well as love each other. It’s telling, I think, that when they finally confess their feelings, they apologise as well, for having misjudged each other so dreadfully. They each think themselves unworthy of the other. But having gotten that out of the way, they continue on their walk in amiable companionship, anticipating the joys of wedded bliss.
     As you can see, it’s difficult to write about the story without descending into cliche. That’s because so many of the cliches were coined by Austen or her immediate followers. The 19th century was the great age of the novel; that was when all the genres were invented by the English and European writers. Austen is still readable because she not only defines the love romance, she uses it to mock the premises on which it rests, and to criticise the marriage ethos of her time. For Pride and Prejudice is about marriage. That famous first sentence announces Austen’s intentions: she will examine the grounds and reasons for marriage and for married happiness. She’s ruthless: nothing less than love (as passionate as possible) and mutual respect will do. All other inducements are secondary, and worse, they can and do lead to bad matches.  The first such inducement is money: but a prospective groom’s income is not the reason to marry. Nor is his willingness to provide status and respectability, as Charlotte Lucas finds out.
     Youthful attractiveness and desire may forge a bond, but they cannot on their own create a union of mind and heart, as the Bennetts show us. What keeps them together is habit and a sense of duty, perhaps also an unwillingness to make unnecessary trouble for themselves. Their life together is made tolerable on Mr Bennett’s part by an ironic detachment that finds entertainment in the social comedy that surrounds him, and on Mrs Bennett’s by an overwhelming focus on getting her daughters well married, and carrying out all the delicious social duties and customs attending a wedding.
     The Gardners are an ideal couple, showing Elizabeth that a marriage founded on mutual respect and affection will conduce to happiness and contentment. She of course wants this, too, which is why she rejects Collins, who respects no one, not even Lady de Bourgh, who accepts his self-congratulatory flattery as sign of respectful esteem. Elizabeth is briefly attracted by Wickham’s treatment of her as an intellectual equal: Wickham is one of those conmen that works by enlisting you into his privileged inner circle. Elizabeth finally accepts Darcy when she can no longer deny she has thoroughly misjudged him, and realises that both passion and respect will shape their relationship. Austen, unlike today’s romance writers, avoids any explicit reference to sex, but there’s no question that Darcy and Elizabeth find each other very, very attractive.
     Austen always had a sharp eye (and often a sharp tongue) for the foibles and hypocrisies of humankind.  Her neighbours I think provided her with all that she needed to create characters such as the smarmy Mr Collins, the appallingly self-centred Lady de Bourgh, the flibberty Lydia, the smiling villain Wickham, the good-natured Sir Lucas, and the childish Mrs Bennett (struggling to fulfill her role of good mother, and repeatedly misplaying it).
     The video is very well made. The leads are just right, Firth knows how to flare a nostril, and Ehle’s sly smile shows insight and amusement. The secondary roles are well done: who can doubt that Bingley and Jane will always be happy with each other? Or that Collins will never be able to see himself as others see him? The costumes, settings, ambience no doubt idealise the early 19th century, but if the producers had decided to show us the actual grimness of the time, we could not pay attention to that which matters: the affairs of the heart. ****