Pride & Prejudice
With Keira Knightly at Miss Elizabeth Bennett.
They can never replace Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle as leads. Nevah!
LADIES? I’m no lady.
Yes, I’ve heard of this. I think a lot of people are going to wonder why they need to improve upon perfection (i.e. the A&E Colin Firth version), but as for me, I’m always game for a new version of Pride and Prejudice.
No that’s just wrong. Absolutely wrong.
I’m with Primaflora on this one. Can anyone explains the appeal of Keira Knightley to me? I am not especially impressed – why the hell would they cast her to play Elizabeth Bennet? (Though Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennet and Dame Judi Dench as Lady Catherine de Bourgh should prove interesting.)
Ugh. I’m having all these visions of Lizzie saying, after Charlotte marries Mr. Collins, “If you think your marriage will be painful, try wearing a corset!” Meh.
How can they capture the intricacies of Pride and Prejudice with a little piddly 2 hour (if even that) movie? That was the beauty of the BBC miniseries, six hours long and it didn’t miss much.
That’s what I was thinking. So this might not be all bad.
On the other hand…that’s Keira Knightly? Meh, indeed. If they had to mine PotC, couldn’t we get Johnny Depp to play Elizabeth instead 
?
Judi Dench will be suberb as Lady Katherine. It is a given. The woman simply cannot badly act.
Donald Sutherland, to me, will always be the guy in the top coat & Fedora on a park bench in DC moving the plot along in JFK. Or the bare bummed professor in Animal House.
Keira Knightly is the new hotness. I have liked her in everything I’ve seen. ( ok, three films: Beckham and Pirates and Love, Actually.) She’s so pretty and dang skinny and can act.
I’ve liked Knightly in what I’ve seen, but I can’t picture her as Elizabeth Bennett. If I go see it at all–and this is a great, big, honking IF–it will be solely for Judi Dench. I just don’t think they can match the BBC version with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. Which reminds me that I have that version on DVD at home and suddenly feel the need to watch. And swoon.
I agree that A&E did the definitive Pride & Prejudice.
Once you’ve had Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, you can never go back. That man made Darcy simply walk right off the pages. And that scene where he comes from swimming in his pond, with his clothes all clinging to him . . . ::drool::
Who the heck is Matthew MacFadyen anyhoo? I cannot countenance any such irregularity to the proceedings.
She seems much more of a Jane than an Elizabeth. And Donald Sutherland is all wrong for Mr. Bennett. Though Judy Dench will make a great Lady Catherine.
But the BBC/A&E production nailed it. The casting (except for Wickham) was excellent (Colin Firth was perfect), the script was wonderful, and it was long enough to really do it justice - 2 hour movie is far too short. It’s far too soon to need another version.
I should watch that this weekend (VHS, not the DVD, sadly).
He was the lead in “Spooks,” which in the US was known as “MI-5”. He’s good in that role, but replace Colin Firth? Not possible!
Another vote for “why mess with perfection?” since the BBC miniseries is darn-near perfect in every respect. And I agree that the miniseries format was perfect for the depiction in a way that no movie could hope to handle.
As for Keira Knightly - I think she’d be great - she’s beautiful, can act reasonably well, has played “spirited” roles and so could probably handled the independently-minded Miss Eliza Bennett quite well. But it’s a bit of a moot point since the movie won’t compare with the mini-series…
Did anyone else know that there was a 2003 version of Pride and Prejudice? I read a reader’s comment about it, and it sounds pretty interesting. Don’t know where to buy a copy yet, though.
I’m kind of a Pride and Prejudice veteran, having been very familiar with the 1980 Masterpiece Theatre version since, well, 1980. I don’t mention the older Lawrence Olivier version here (though it has some small interest to me), because it strays far too much from the book.
I was pretty young when I first saw the 1980 version, and a year or two later when Masterpiece Theatre repeated it, I pleaded with my sister (the only person I knew who had a VCR) to tape it for me. I treasured that tape and made a copy of it about 9-10 years later. I’ve been watching the 1980 Elizabeth Garvie/David Rintoul version almost anually (I’ve fallen off the last few years), since then.
I was at first hesitant about the 1996 Colin Firth version, because it seemed to add more stuff about Darcy (he was so earthy! he needed a shave!) and frankly, I just didn’t like Firth very much. He didn’t have the stiff coolness of Rintoul, who was so snobby at the beginning of the series and then warmed up at the end—which to me seemed more in tune with the book. (When I first saw the Rintoul version, I hated Darcy at the beginning, he was such a dick!)
But then I warmed up to Firth and I really liked him as Darcy. I warmed up to the whole production and liked their interpretation of Darcy. I always had liked the other actors and felt they were well-chosen, it was Firth with whom I had a problem with at first.
Ironically, I did my annual viewing of Pride and Prejudice (yes, I am a geek, why do you ask?) just a few days ago. My mom and I have this girly ritual where we watch it together about once a year (we watched the Garvie/Rintoul version and then switched to the Firth version after it came out). And it was time again to watch it again.
Since a DVD of the Garvie/Rintoul version is coming out soon (which, of course, I have pre-ordered), I thought I wanted to see my old moldy tape, which is the un-edited version. I am unsure at this point, but it looks like the DVD is going to be like the previous commercial tape version: they cut out over an hour. So I wanted to see my tape of the original Masterpiece Theatre version, complete with Alistair Cooke commenting at the beginning of each episode.
Now that I’m seeing each version back-to-back, I can see the strengths of each. I like them both. I think that the Firth version is more “accessable” and I think it’s good how it fills in the blanks about what’s going on with Darcy. But the Garvie/Rintoul version is very dense and rich with Austen-isms and I like it very much too.
Anyway, when this new version comes out, of course I will be interested in seeing it. I have admired both Rintoul and Firth as Darcy (and Garvie and Ehle) and I am sure I can make room in my heart for a new interpretation. But I do share the concerns of others here about the length of a feature film, however. It can’t possibly be long enough to capture the story properly.
Sorry for the ramble, but this thread caught me in the middle of my annual P&P fest, so what do you expect? 
Why is there no barf smilie? Must they continue to inflict Jane Austen on the masses? ::shudders::
elfkin477 - by all means, you are welcome to dislike Jane Austen, but this is clearly not the thread in which to do it. Please take it elsewhere and don’t actively try to offend.
Gosh, I cannot wait until a director tries to intepret the classic " Electric Bugaloo" for today’s generation.
Meh.
I, too, love A&E’s version. I actually thought Colin Firth was all wrong for the part until I saw it. (I saw Circle of Friends before I saw P&P) I think Keira Knightley is beautiful and spirited, but I hope she doesn’t make the mistake of making Elizabeth out to be some 19th century ahead-of-her-time feminist. Yes, Elizabeth was spirited and ran through fields without her shoes on, but she was also a traditionalist at heart. For instance, she was deeply mortified by her mother and younger sister’s outspokenness and lack of propriety.
Jennifer Ehle did a wonderful job at balancing out Elizabeth. I hope Knightley can do the same.
Jennifer Ehle was a picture of radiance as Elizabeth and had such a lovely smile…and now we get sulky, scrawny, snaggle-toothed/scary-smiling Keira Knightley in the same role?? Whaaaaaa-? This is horrible news.
Reviving a zombie thread.
By now you’ve all seen it - what did you think?