Pride and Prejudice

As a resident of Utah who DOESN'T belong to the LDS church, I honestly hadn't wanted to see this, but my kids saw it and said that it was actually pretty good. I am a BIG fan of Jane Austen (with an E!) and I thought the references were rather cute. My husband, who is really clueless when it comes to Austen, was a little lost. We had to keep stopping the DVD and reminding him who all the characters were as it was a bit hard to keep track if you're not familiar with the story. That is probably this movie's biggest flaw; however, it's rather cleverly done for those of us who are Austen fans, even attempting (a bit clumsily) to illustrate the injustice women face (Austen's 19th century theme) when they MUST marry well in order to survive. The performances were uneven; some were rather wooden, but most were adequate. The lead characters (Darcy and Elizabeth) did fairly well. Bingley and Jane were distractingly goofy. I loved the grocery store scene! I didn't quite understand, what with Mormon families typically being as big as they are, why the 5 girls couldn't all be sisters, but that's a minor flaw, I suppose. Overall, this was cute and had some clever writing. I had very low expectations and this exceeded them. A definite possibility if you're looking for a rental the whole family (particularly if you have all girls as I do) to enjoy.

If you're attracted to the P&P story line and are entertained by the idea of the plot working itself out in different cultural contexts, then this is the movie for you. The context here is the LDS or "Mormon" culture of Utah. Like "Clueless," the movie's strength comes from recycling the plot of one of Austen's classic novels. As it is, it's fun, though rough around the edges.

P&P poses some real challenges when you transport it to a modern setting, since a lot of the things that mattered to women in the Regency period just don't matter any more. By placing the story in the LDS context, the producers subjected the women to a culture with a few crucial similarities. I know very little about the LDS culture, but the film suggests that LDS women *want* to get married and the men expect them to be virgins. This gives the story its foundation.

This is clearly a low budget production. It shows in some of the technical aspects and in the acting, but the actors are at least competent. There's lots of gentle humor, but the movie lacks the sharp wit that is Austen's trademark.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is not just a clever romance. It contains strong criticism against a society that punished women for their intelligence, created an upper class for whom working for a living was disgraceful, and operated through social interactions that could make true, intimate friendship difficult. The novel depicts intense pressure on young women to marry, and marry early-- and shows how such marriages can end in tragedy. This movie, however, is almost completely free of serious criticism of Mormon society. Instead, it is full of silly characters doing silly things, wearing foolish outfits and lobbing objects at each other in case you didn't understand that it was supposed to be a comedy. Apparently the pressure to marry that young Mormons feel is really kind of a hoot.

This movie would have been better off in its own orbit somewhere in a faraway galaxy and not associating itself, even remotely, with Austen's Pride and the Prejudice. Instead, it comes across more-like Connie Francis' Where the Boys Are (1965, Ft. Lauderdale, Spring Break). It ignores the plight of a woman who bases her own social situation on the social standing of her prospective mate. Characters, in this movie, serve very little purpose. Lydia, Kitty, Mary, and Mr. Bingley are colorless and idle and are about nothing (great teeth, however). There is no Mrs. Bennett to light the fire of 'hurry-up and marry'. No Mr. Bennett to promote non-conformity and boredom. Mr. Collins, who is traditionally portrayed as the gallant knight of the Kings James Version, is the awkward oaf but never the marital threat that made his character funny. This Wickam doesn't even come close to being an illusion of a 'fine catch'. Jane and Lizzie aren't even sisters, figuratively, in this weak rendition. But, even this movie couldn't reduce Mr. Darcy. And what woman can resist a man who says 'I'm wrong. I'm sorry. Forgive me. I love you'? (sigh) Ha! The Austen tribute in the movie comes too late. It was like receiving that expensive after-dinner-mint when you've only supped on a bologna sandwich.

I really wanted to like this movie. Modern day adaptations and twists on Austen can be wonderful, many on here have mentioned Clueless, another great one is the Lost in Austen miniseries.

The problem here is not so much the Mormon setting, but the limitations and constraints that Mormon culture appears to put on the writers in terms of plot. I gleaned enough of the cultural setting from other reviewers on here for that to more or less make sense (those reviewers are correct in that it's not very well explained/explained at all).

So what's good? It's nice, bright and colourful. Casting the five sisters as various college friends was an interesting idea. The main actress playing Elizabeth is very watchable. The actor playing Darcy is competent (even if he often looks uncannily like Adrian Lukas, who plays Wickham in the definitive BBC adaptation). Chemistry is more or less there. The quotes from Austen, had they been less hideously pinkly presented, were nearly an interesting touch.

The problem is tone. Austen's work is sharp and exacting, biting, witty and harsh. This was bland. It lacked edge. One got the sense that there was a culturally religious nicely-nicely thing going on here, and it just doesn't work with the background material.

There were slapstick moments that really jarred: particularly in "imagination" sequences - ie they didn't really happen. (Is slapstick perhaps a more tolerable form of humour to Mormons than satire or saucier wit?) Regardless, the movie should have had the guts to follow through with these moments if it wanted that tone, instead of: "no, not really! It didn't really happen, it was just in her mind!" every time. In doing so it weakened the heroine and made her look passive and victimy.

It's hard to fit a novel like Pride & Prejudice into a feature film length, as there are so many characters, and that weakness showed here. The writers would have been better to reduce the amount of female characters (Mary's and Charlotte's roles were mixed up anyway) and they did at least axe one of the Bingley sisters. But ultimately Kitty and Lydia felt very extraneous. From memory, Clueless was slimmed down in terms of supporting cast compared to Emma.

All in all it's a pleasant, visually colourful movie to watch. But it lacks edge, guts and is at times painfully naive. Which, given its religious subtext, is perhaps unsurprising.