Video/DVD Reviews

Video/DVD Reviews -
Pride & Prejudice: Navigation

Pride & Prejudice - PG

Rate It!
On 10+
4 stars

Gorgeous Jane Austen adaptation.

Rating: PG for some mild thematic elements Studio: Focus Features Directed By: Joe Wright Cast: Keira Knightley Running Time: 127 minutes Release Date: 11/11/2005 Genre: Drama

It's quick and easy to pass on
this great info!

Common Sense Note

Parents should know that the movie includes discussions of marriage for money. Set in 19th century England, it offers a mostly gentle, sometimes incisive critique of class and gender systems. Characters drink at a party, make sexual allusions, and argue with one another concerning money and romance.

Families can discuss Elizabeth's rebelliousness: How does she worry her mother but also inspire her father's loyalty? How do the parents handle their disagreement about Elizabeth's choices? How does Elizabeth protect her sisters, and how does Darcy seem like a worthy match for her?

They can also compare the movie to the book. How does this Elizabeth compare to the one they imagined?

Rate It!

Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs

PRIDE & PREJUDICE is punctuated with tinkly piano fills and golden-lit fields, and salvaged by Keira Knightley's remarkable charm. She's well suited to play Elizabeth Bennet, famously self-directed and stubborn, an "independent woman" a century before Destiny's Child named the type. While she's a good girl, looking after her four sisters, trying to appease her mother (Brenda Blethyn), and doting on her daddy (Donald Sutherland), she also wants more than marriage to a boring man who happens to have money.

She's also destined to find her match, here an utterly uninteresting Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen). They meet at a ball near her family home, Darcy being a guest of the well-heeled, if bumbling Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods) and his haughty sister Caroline (Kelly Reilly). Their arrival in town sets the Bennets, especially the bubbly Mrs., into a tizzy, as the girls are looking for wealthy husbands, since their own respectable but small family estate is set to be inherited by the nearest male heir, Mr. Collins (Tom Hollander).

Thus begins the usual Austen pairing off, designated couples defined, divided, and brought back together. Upright sort Bingley ("I'm not a big reader, I prefer being out of doors") falls for Elizabeth's bland sister Jane (Rosamund Pike), and Darcy starts squabbling with Elizabeth. He broods and grumps, she's given to pensive rhapsodies, twisting round and round on a rope swing in the family barn, the image slowed down to make sure you note her daunting loveliness. Darcy certainly does -- again and again, even as he does his best to resist, by disparaging the locals ("I find the country perfectly adequate") and convincing Bingley to abandon Jane.

Though their volatile romance is the basis for Austen's class critique, it's a romance, and Elizabeth must come to realize not only that she is attracted to this difficult fellow but also that he's generous and tender, perfectly adequate boyfriend material, and only a bit oppressed by his own relative, the ferocious Lady Catherine (Judi Dench). When she makes a late night visit to the Bennets to warn Elizabeth to keep away from her nephew, the younger woman takes this as a challenge on two fronts: one, she's just now learned that Darcy actually "likes" her (in high school fashion), and two, she now has a more formidable force to fight in the awesome shape of Lady Catherine.

Still, the film follows Austen's shape without Austen's sharpness. The tinkly piano annoys, the expansive landscapes look romantic. And Elizabeth can make the sentimental choice at last, when she actually falls in love with her monied, much desired object.

Families who like this movie should also see Bride & Prejudice (2004), Clueless (1995), the BBC's miniseries, Pride and Prejudice (1995), and Ang Lee's lovely Sense and Sensibility (1995).

Rate It! Send to a Friend

It's quick and easy to pass on
this great info!

Content
CS adults kids

Sexual Content

Some clever verbal references to sexual desire, some rain-soaked declarations of sexual tension and then desire.

Violence

Language

One use of "ass."

Message

 

Social Behavior

 

Commercialism

 

Drug/Alcohol/Tobacco

Some social drinking at parties.

Rate It Now

Tell others what you think!
Write a review or post a comment.

Tell others what you think!
Write a review or post a comment.

Tell others what you think!
Write a review or post a comment.

OR

Tell others what you think!
Write a review or post a comment.

It only takes a minute to get great benefits! Sign up now and get a FREE Internet Survival Guide!