(Anybody else see MADAGASCAR? Aren’t the penguins a hoot? “Just smile and wave, boys, just smile and wave.”)

The Stateside publicity begins in earnest, to our combined amusement and consternation at the general cluelessness of the media, not to mention some of the stars of the film.

Alert Janeite Lorraine sent us a link to Peter Travers’ review in Rolling Stone; he gives it three (out of four, we think) stars.

Granted that screen and tv adaptations of Jane Austen’s most popular novel are nothing new, the last being the 2004 Bollywood musical Bride and Prejudice. And granted that the peak is still the five-hour 1995 BBC miniseries starring Jennifer Ehle and a never-better Colin Firth. But even the most rabid Janeites must allow that director Joe Wright, 33, has given Austen’s novel a beguilingly youthful spin without compromising the novel’s late-eighteenth-century manners.

Director Joe Wright goes over some old ground with the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune. He didn’t read the book, wanted to use young actors, yada yada.

But in the next breath, he cautions Austen fans against expecting too accurate an interpretation. While he’s proud of how closely the movie reflects the tone of the book, there’s no way that it can match the breadth of the context.

“The movie is only two hours and seven minutes,” he said. “We had to focus on Elizabeth and Darcy [her suitor], and that detracted from the other stories. The most unfortunate is Jane [Elizabeth's older sister]. I would have liked to have done more with her story.”

Canoe.ca passes on the groundbreaking aspect of the film: it’s Lizzy’s story! Who’d've thunk it?

Sutherland’s quibble with past versions of Austen’s most famous and most influential novel is that the dour character of Dr. (sic) Darcy overshadowed the drama. That was at the expense of the Elizabeth/Lizzie character, the fiery young woman of inferior social rank who first despises his arrogance and then grows to appreciate and love Mr. Darcy, perhaps after it is already too late.

You’ll have to picture us rolling our eyes here. Is this going to replace Gritty Reality™ as the new meme? “It’s Lizzy’s story this time!”

Jena Malone, who plays Lydia, is profiled in the New York Daily News.

“If they made ‘Pride & Prejudice 2,’ Lydia would become more of a tragic figure,” Malone says. “Her innocence and the way she views the world will crumble. She’ll be able to see more clearly the man she married. As they drive off, she has an inkling of an abusive relationship.

“But Lydia is the type of girl who will make things happen. If she has to go live with her sister Lizzie and Darcy, she’ll just show up on their doorstep. She’s a feisty little monkey.”

For the benefit of Miss Malone, we provide the following bit from the final chapter of the novel, in which Jane Austen, in her infinite wisdom, prevents us from having to speculate on Mrs. Wickham’s future:

(Wickham and Lydia’s) manner of living, even when the restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme. They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for her soon sunk into indifference; her’s lasted a little longer; and in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her.

Feisty little monkey, indeed.

Matthew Macfadyen is interviewed by the International Herald Tribune and comes off as a rather likeable chap.

“I don’t feel like a romantic lead; I guess I feel more like a character actor,” MacFadyen confessed recently. Dressed down for an interview in jeans and a sweatshirt, he lived up to his advance billing as the epitome of non-starry casualness.

“I don’t look like Mr. Darcy in my head,” he went on. “If I could paint Darcy, he would be dishier, darker-haired than I am.”

Brenda Blethyn chats with the Seattle Times.

“There are little patches in [Mrs. Bennet's] dresses that have been made with the new fabric from the girls’ dresses,” remembered Blethyn. “The dresses are all handmade, as they would have been.”

*clutches head in hands, wills it to not explode*

Perhaps if we type veeerrrrrryyyyy slowwwwwwwwly and use words of less than two syllables, we can make them understand? Worth a try. Hence, today’s lesson:

Yes, dresses were made by hand in Jane Austen’s time, as the sewing machine was not yet invented. (three syllables, dang.) These “handmade” dresses were still well-sewn. All women could sew. Jane Austen’s sewing was exquisite (we saw it up close just last week; you’ll have to take our word for it, but trust us on this one) and if one may believe her letters, she took pride in the neatness of her work. That being said, she and her sister–who were not the daughters of a landed gentleman with a handsome income if no savings–sent their gowns to a dressmaker to be made up, because that’s what ladies did in those days.

In simpler terms: “handmade” does not necessarily equal “poorly sewn burlap bags” as the costume people dealing with this film seem to think. (Saw the costumes up close, too. Trust us, once again. Poorly sewn burlap bags.)

And lastly, Paul of KeiraWeb.com wrote to tell us that the U.S. premiere of the film will be on Thursday, November 10, at the Loews Lincoln Square Theatre, 1998 Broadway (at 68th Street) in New York. Just smile and wave, boys, just smile and wave!