The duel of P&Ps

If you're wondering if I spend all my days in front of a tv screen and munching on popcorn and pretzels, I can tell you plainly that it's not the case. I'm just behind on quite a few posts, so...

I finally watched the BBC miniseries of P&P with two friends of mine. The running time was 5.5 hours. Seriously, it was a piece of cake. As an ardent fan of Pride and Prejudice (along with ~50M other females in the US and probably over ~1B other females throughout the world), I wasn't disappointed. The BBC version was extremely faithful to the book, down to the ugly empire-waisted gowns that made every girl pregnant regardless of her age.

Colin Firth was an admirable Darcy...I felt his transition from jackass to moderately pleasing to adorable most strongly. Futrhermore, Jennifer Ehle played Elizabeth extremely well, managing to smile and be sarcastic at the same time. She was quite lovely and didn't look quite as pregnant as her sister Jane.

The acting was extremely good, and the movie, although not lavish, conveyed Austen's sentiments well. After I saw this version of P&P, I immediately realized where 80% of the material came from. I am convinced that the producer and director of the recent P&P sat the crew and cast down in a darkened theater and made them watch the BBC version at least ten times each.

Keira Knightly probably had to watch the BBC version at least twenty times. Her mannerisms and way of speaking imitated Ehle's Lizzy extremely closely. Or maybe it's a British thing. The current P&P has gorgeous scenery and is a more dramatic version of Austen's novel. I really enjoyed this movie as well as the BBC series.

Matthew Macfadyen was wonderful as Darcy. He and Keira Knightly had so much more passion than Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle (The only complaint of the BBC version). He's so gloomy and passionate and dark and moody...except for the last few scenes, where the whole thing dissolves into a puddle of sappiness. The last scene (US version) was positively vile in its sappiness.

On the whole, I loved the BBC version, adored the current version, and am still deeply in love with the paper version.