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| Pride & Prejudice | 
 enlarge | Director: Joe Wright (iv)
Actors: Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Rosamund Pike, Jena Malone, Carey Mulligan
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $6.85
You Save: $8.13 (54%)
New (47) Used (38) Collectible (1) from $6.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  883 reviews
Sales Rank: 193
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 129
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: MCAD28072D
UPC: 025192807220
EAN: 0025192807220
ASIN: B000E1ZBGS
Theatrical Release Date: November 23, 2005
Release Date: February 28, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW, Factory Sealed items direct from the Studios. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Quick International Airmail!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Beautiful Film, Mediocre Adaptation August 28, 2006
46 out of 63 found this review helpful
I must confess to being one of the many doubters, who wondered aloud when the trailers for this P & P came out, Do we need another one? At the time my answer was: We Don't. After finally viewing it, my opinion remains unchanged. And it isn't just that the BBC version got it so right that we can't get over it. It's a lot more: No doubt, there are moments of beautiful film captured here. But the screenplay, which squeezes the book into just over two hours -- is botched, terribly so. We know from other Jane Austen films that it is NOT impossible to capture the essence of the novel in a short time frame (when in doubt, please consult Emma Thompson!); nothing close to coherence happens in this film, as anyone who has read the novel and watched it can attest. Those familiar with the novel will see immediately where scenes have been combined, re-arranged, or re-imagined entirely, often to bizarre effect. Those who haven't read the novel will be utterly confused. One explanation will suffice: Wickham's character is not sufficiently developed to make it clear why he departs, and why Elizabeth is so upset when Lydia elopes with him. All of the important context for this storyline is dropped. The random modernizing of language serves no purpose that I can find -- either leave Austen's beautiful language alone, or modernize entirely, and update the time as well, whereby Emma becomes "Clueless." As to characterization, I find no evidence of Lizzy's and Mr Bennet's wonderful relationship (in fact, Donald Sutherland looks bored), I don't see much chemistry between Elizabeth and Darcy, or much chemistry between anyone for that matter. Costumes are not period appropriate, which again would be fine, if there was some coherence to the choices that were made. And why is everyone's hair wild and ukepmt? Finally, I am told that the Bennet's "status reduction" -- whereby Longborn is made to look poorer than the novel suggests -- was done to draw a clearer distinction between Elizabeth's and Darcy's status. This was hardly necessary, and random flights of geese, chickens and pigs all over the place is completely annoying. The entire film feels rushed and perfunctory, like the cast is haunted by the ghosts of prior versions, even before the camera starts rolling, and says "Let's just get on with it." Jane Austen -- and her fans -- deserve better.
 This movie made me want to cry January 16, 2007
45 out of 58 found this review helpful
I absolutely love Jane Austen and this movie did not do justice to the story. There were so many historical inaccuracies I don't know where to begin.
The Bennetts did not live on a dirty farm. Mr. Bennett was a Gentleman part of the upper middle class and would have had property supporting that status. He wouldn't have lived on a farm and he wouldn't have had a dog in the house. They would have had a carriage.
Mr. Wickham was almost nonexistent.
Miss Bingley looked like she was wearing a corset at the Netherfield Ball The costuming was wrong all around.
Lizzy never was intentionally mean in her teasing. There was one spot in the movie where I was wanting to scream because they changed the dialog from the book. Where she's at Netherfield and she and Darcy are having one of many verbal sparing matches and he's talking about pride being a failing in the movie they have her saying, "I love to laugh, but I cannot" However
in the book she says, "That is a failing indeed, but I cannot laugh at it".
Mr. Darcy walks into the Collins' home in the middle of the night into her bedroom without anyone hearing him? Outside of that being a no-no particularly back then, The Collins' at least had a servant.
Lady Catherine Jeudi Dench was a great Lady Cathrine. Which is why I don't mind paying the rental fee. However she wouldn't have come to the Bennett's house in the middle of the night to have it out with Lizzy. What's the point of mentioning the Bennett's have a small park on one side of the house if you're not going to walk in it. The argument between Lady Cathrine and Lizzy is one of the best cat fights in literature and they ruin it.
Mr. Bingley is portrayed as a bumbling idiot and Darcy has to work with him to get the nerve up to ask Jane. When he had his mind made up in the first place and was a bit upset when Darcy concealed Jane being in town.
Georgiana Darcy was not outgoing. In fact she was rather shy.
There are so many more things I could mention, but I think I've made my point. I have no problems with modernized versions of Pride and Prejudice, but if your going to do it within a period piece that's where I draw the line. Either do the proper research of the period and get it right or don't do it at all.
Well, I suppose a little Austen is better than none. Maybe not. February 4, 2007
40 out of 62 found this review helpful
With the Colin Firth-Jennifer Ehle BBC version still fresh and available, why anyone thought that making an abridged theatrical version with anachronisms and insipid acting is beyond me. It's illiterate to confuse the srong-willed and unconventional Austen character of Elizabeth Bennet with a modern-day liberated feminist, which she was not and could not have been. The BBC version understood that; this version was silly and superficial, not to mention that there was no chemistry at all between the leading characters. The idea of Mr and Mrs Bennet as a loving couple is completely contrary to the original story. There was no presentation of the absolute necessity for a young woman with little money to have to marry well, and many other essentially interesting plot points were eliminated. This Mr Darcy isn't haughty and rude, we're supposed to feel sorry for him because he's shy? Films are different from novels, but if you're going to change the essentials of the story, you might as well update it entirely to the present day, and call it something else, but not Jane Austen's.
Skip It January 17, 2006
39 out of 64 found this review helpful
The current version of "Pride and Prejudice" starring Keira Knightley is a travesty. Do not see it in a theater, buy it, rent it, or watch it on television. It was a waste of time and electricity to make, and will be a waste of your time to see.
There was a full-length version of "Pride and Prejudice" filmed in 1995, starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, that remains not only unsurpassed but unequaled. It is perfectly adapted, cast, directed, acted, costumed, filmed, and scored. It preserves not only Jane Austen's intent, but the dialogue she wrote. Buy it and watch it instead.
When she starred in the 1995 film, Miss Ehle did not have the blandly "beautiful" features or skeletal body of a model. She was, nevertheless, captivating as Elizabeth Bennet. The beauty--spiritual, intellectual, and physical--of the character she portrays increases in our esteem as we get to know her, just as it does in Darcy's. Elizabeth, as written by Austen and portrayed by Jennifer Ehle, was a mature and fascinating young woman, not a giggly, petulant teenager with an eating disorder.
Keira Knightley looks desperately in need of nourishment, and the "lollipop-head" figure does not work for the character she is playing. It's hard to believe that a girl of Elizabeth Bennet's time, place, and social class could have grown up so emaciated, unless she had a tapeworm.
And, finally, there are many, including prominent professional critics, who commend this adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" for its "realistic" portrayal of dirt, unkempt clothes and hair, farm animals wallowing in the living room, etc. In fact, it is not only historically unauthentic, it is false to Jane Austen. There were no such scenes of squalor included in the novel. To the contrary, Austen wrote a passage in which Elizabeth Bennet sets out on a long walk after a rain storm to visit her ailing sister, during which she soils the hem of her skirt with mud. This slight soiling results in a small amount of embarrassment for Elizabeth, who tries to let down her outer garment to hide it, and a great amount of derision behind her back by two nasty female residents of the house she is visiting. Had dirt and shabbiness been the norm in households like Elizabeth's at the time depicted, it is unlikely a little mud on the edge of a skirt would have attracted anyone's notice or rude commentary, and these events in the book would have made no sense. The fact that Austen wrote such a scene and had the characters behave as they do indicates that cleanliness and neatness of dress were normal and expected at that place and time, among that class of people.
Piecemeal and annoyingly superficial July 9, 2006
39 out of 54 found this review helpful
There is nothing to praise or defend about this version of Pride and Prejudice. In no significant way does it compare favorably with the earlier BBC version starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. That production has compelling characterizations, coherence, continuity, charm, sensitivity, and moving music and visuals. With the possible exception of the last mentioned aspect, this one has none of those qualities. About the only convincing individual performance is that of Lady Catherine de Berg, and even that barely matches up to the same role in the BBC portrayal. With this newer Universal Studios remake, it's as if someone took a finished puzzle, pulled apart the pieces and threw them across the room, then tried randomly to put them back together. If I had watched this production without ever having seen the BBC's earlier one, I would have barely understood what was transpiring. Circumstances occur too rapidly, are never substantively developed, fall into an abyss and then are replaced by other events that demonstrate no depth or development either...My wife and I have viewed the BBC presentation many times, and each time we have experienced a wonderful sense of emotional fulfillment. We watched this Universal version just once---that was more than enough. The most satisfying thing was getting rid of the dvd as soon as possible.
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