First Impressions of the new Pride and Prejudice
Sarah Sands of the Telegraph saw a screening of P&P3, and offered her opinions on Knightley as Elizabeth, Macfadyen as Darcy, and the virtuous rich.
She describes Knightley’s Elizabeth as modern, and Macfadyen’s Darcy as true to the period.
Working Title is proud of its contemporary Elizabeth Bennet in Keira Knightley. No bodices and bonnets here. You would not be surprised to see Lizzy rolling a cigarette on the kitchen table. By contrast, Matthew Macfadyen is resolutely period, with a deep voice and breeches.
No comment.
And as for the virtuous rich?
You will see a lot of the virtuous rich over the next month with the Make Poverty History campaign. Working Title is full of the virtuous rich and Freud Associates are the VR of public relations. Price and Prejudice may turn out to be the VR film of the year. Darcy’s time has come.
She also threw in the answer to a question I had after viewing the trailer:
The scriptwriters say they have been faithful to Jane Austen; and the author’s witty realism survives all but the last scene, in which Macfadyen, dressed as Adam Ant with his Minotaur physique filling the screen, kisses his new wife by flaming torchlight on the steps to the house. Part of Working Title’s commercial genius is packaging Englishness for Americans. But the English audience I was part of rebelled at this.
Ah, so that shot of Darcy and Elizabeth in front of Pemberley is after the wedding. I don’t claim to be a purist, and love the thought of seeing Darcy welcome Elizabeth back to Pemberley, this time as his wife. Of course I am also an American, so that must explain it as well, as it does so many other things.
(Dorothy, quickly woman! The vinaigrette!)
