Pride and Prejudice

Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice (2005) captures all that is right about historical literary romances, recreating that sense of verbal sparing between the sexes, documenting the social classes that confined families to marrying off their children out of need rather than desire, but, most of all, this film celebrates the euphoric sense of romance that accompanies intellectual Lizzie Bennett discovering her fellow intellectual Mr. Darcy to be the ideal romance of her life.

Elizabeth Bennett (Keira Knightley) is the sophisticated daughter among her family, entertaining intelligence rather than simplicity. As such, she harbors natural resentment toward those who chastise her sex or demean her family, such as recent arrival Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), a man who believes Eliabeth's sister's affection for his best friend, Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods), to be out of profit and social rising, and not out of the pure love that it is actually based on. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy spend much of the film dueling and challenging one another, and only later do they realize that each means the best for their respective family and friends. Upon this realization, the two begin to be slowly drawn to each other, but, as with all great literary romance classics, society colludes against them.

While this is a romantic film, Wright includes much of Austen's social commentary, so that the Bennett family mother and two younger sisters are understood to be devotional only to marriage, good looks, and wealth, and larger issues of propriety and economic conditions escape them. Moreover, Wright analyzes the way in which beauty becomes a currency for women, marketing themselves to potential suitors with all the air of perfection itself. Contrasted against this vision, though, is Lizzie's best friend, a thoroughly ordinary woman who must resign herself to the also ordinary Mr. Collins. These issues are not glossed, but instead are handled with the care of one who knows that historical accuracy only adds to the weight of the film.

At the end of the day, there are few films as tenderly beautiful and romantic as this one, where a simple devotional kiss is repressed until the final frame. However, this is a film that is nonetheless deeply romantic, exposing the desires that we all have for another. The last ten minutes are amazing, and every emotional crescendo is earned. Simply delightful.

Pride and Prejudice: 9/10