Pride and Prejudice: A New Musical- A Review
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Pride and Prejudice: A New Musical
Runtime- 2hr 8min
Air date- April 11th, 2020
Director- Robert Kelley
Writers- Paul Gordon
Filming locations- United States
Where to watch- Stream free on Plex or Tubi, or rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video
Starring Mary Mattison as Elizabeth Bennet and Justin Mortellini as Mr. Darcy
A Brief Summary
Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride & Prejudice is adapted into a whimsy musical. You’ll find the story transforms into lyrics and modern humor to give any musical lover delight.
“First Impressions”
I want to say that before diving into this musical, I saw one review and the trailer… Dread came down before me. I like musicals, but I don’t love musicals. Thinking back to my Bride & Prejudice review I speak a bit about my qualms with musicals.
I want to talk about the review I saw, it was the first and only one I saw before watching the musical. This made me debate whether or not to give my two cents about other reviews. I spend my time on IMDb finding movies and TV shows and use it as a starting point when researching entertainment projects. So this is my main source of finding reviews. Nitpicking or praising other reviews does seem petty to me, but some do give insight. For others, I try to understand their perception, despite disagreeing. This one review thought made me say “Oh no.”
The review was short and said something like, “I don’t like musicals, but I love this one.”
It was the kind of review where I did not believe what they said at all. If you do not like musicals, a recording of a musical is most likely not going to change your feelings or create an exception. Not say it isn’t possible, but not likely. I felt like this person either just wanted to write a positive review or was a closeted theatre kid at heart.
Ok, back on track…
Ok back to the musical. I did not like it. If you love pretty much all musicals, you will love this one. This just was not it for me.
I could not pick this musical all day, and I do not want to, I don’t want to as I believe it is not fair to the work and effort put into this. But I still want to say something. So here are the two main reasons why I don’t like this.
Music
I did not think the music was all that great. Yes, it did sound nice, but it was nothing new or innovative, and it wasn’t catchy enough for me to remember any of it afterward.
I remember however when Elizabeth sang about being headstrong. It made me understand that when Jane Austen wrote something only once or maybe twice, it was enough. Also, Elizabeth’s self-proclaiming of being headstrong and singing it twenty times just did not sit well with me.
Costumes
There were some parts in the beginning where I was easily distracted by the little almost pearl beads coming from Elizabeth’s forehead. At first, I thought it was an interesting adornment choice. Late I figured out it must been used to grip to put on and off the wig as I started to keep seeing it with the other characters.
But that is not the issue. Some of the costumes, especially Elizabeth’s were nothing close to Regency Era style at all. And I should give it a pass because of budgets and whatnot. But the second act when she changed into a black and white dress was even worse. The first blue dress I kind of liked, but it gave more of a sailor-type, which I gave it a pass, but the second dress… Big black and white floral, it wasn’t flattering to the actress and it was out of place completely.
Final Thoughts
If you love musicals, this is for you. It had some moments where I did chuckle a little bit, but not as much as the audience in the recording did. So there is a major difference between who will and will not like this. Even though there are some parts I thought were okay, I just was not a fan, and I don’t expect to watch it again.
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