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Pride and Prejudice (2003)

Runtime- 1hr 44min

Air date- December 5th, 2003

Writers- Anne K. Black, Katherine Brim

Director- Andrew Black

Filming locations- Utah, USA

Where to watch- stream free on Freeve or buy/rent on Amazon Prime Video

Starring Kam Haskin as Elizabeth Bennet and Orlando Seale as Will Darcy

Source

This was a film that I really wanted to love. Unfortunately, there were a lot of inconsistencies and decisions that were made in poor taste that prevented me from loving it.

Here are 3 reasons why you should watch, and 3 reasons why you should not:

Why you should watch

1. The Plot

Taking a period piece of literature that is heavily focused on the society of that time and then adapting it to a modern story can be such a difficult challenge. If I were given the task to do so, I would feel stuck on square one for a long time and most likely feel defeated.

Here I thought they did a decent job of finding a creative way to translate the plot into a modern adaptation. College students sharing an apartment trying to make something of their life. The Bennet girls are all friends instead of sisters. The pressure to have it all figured out and also have a family before the age of 30. I liked the concept of it, which is why I put this in the “why to watch”, but that is the extent of it.

To me, it had so much potential, and instead, they spent so much time applying tropes and jokes of what was popular in films in the late ’90s and the early 2000s. It was hard to take seriously and did not age well at all.

2. Elizabeth Bennet

At first, I got worried that Elizabeth would be put into the classic trope of a nerdy girl who is actually pretty when she takes off her glasses or the apathetic cool girl against all of society. That was vibe I was getting from the very beginning and I started to dread it. Thankfully they did not go in that direction. 

Elizabeth Bennet is trying her make her mark on the world by becoming a writer. She stays true to herself. Is persistent with her goals, and does not let anyone interfere or persuade her otherwise. She became a very likable character and I believe that Kam Haskin did an excellent job executing her, giving a modern Miss Bennet enough justice to the original novel set in Regency England.

One flaw I did find with Elizabeth’s character is the internalized misogyny. I know that the culture in 2003 did have a lot of blatant hate and undertones against women. Elizabeth was labeled as a feminist, but she did make comments that degraded other women. I did not like the fact that she called Lydia a skank, and also remarked how pure and lovely Jane is but if it wasn’t for being her best friend she would have “hated her.” It is something that would not fly today in 2024.

3. Mr. Darcy

Upon first meeting Mr. Darcy in the film, I immediately had a strong disliked of him. He was consistently rude and arrogant. I absolutely did not like him at all, so much that I believed (despite watching multiple Pride & Prejudice adaptations) that his character would not change. Of course, I was wrong, thankfully.

I do feel, like with Elizabeth’s character, the same way as with Darcy’s character in terms of performance. That Orlando Seale did a really good job portraying him. When Darcy started to right his wrongs and become amiable, I did melt for him. The dynamic character was so drastic that I did have initial strong dislike feelings for the character and they also changed just as drastically into love and admiration.

Both leads were written well and the actors performed well, it is unfortunate that it was the only strong point of the film, and pretty much everything else faltered it.

Why you should not watch

1. Movie Tropes

This movie got extremely messy overloading it with tropes. It tried so hard to give it a coming-of-age type movie, but the characters were already of age. It reminds me of American Pie but without the raunchy and lewd sex. 

In my opinion, there were maybe a couple of jokes that warranted a little chuckle, but most of them didn’t land and felt too forced and not organic.

2. Characters

The biggest disappointment was the characters. Aside from the two main characters, and maybe Jane and Wickham’s character, everyone was a joke. They all were very cartoony, as in over-animated, unrealistic, and just used to be the butt of the joke. The characters that were most like this were Bingley, Kitty, and Lydia. A lot I saw in Mary and Collin’s characters too. It insulted the characters and you could not take it seriously. Thus, it was hard to take the movie seriously or even enjoy it.

3. The Production

I am not going to go on and on about production, for I am not a trained eye for this. I did do some film studies way back when, but I do not want to address myself as one who well versed in the matter. Even so, it is not difficult to see that the overall production was inconsistent.

The writing, as mentioned about the characters before, most of them were jokes. We had serious main characters that were enmeshed with goofy characters. Most of the jokes had no flow, and there were awkwardly contrived scenes just to fit in a humorous bit.

There was also some lighting and camera work that was inconsistent. It felt very amateur at times, and some scenes felt like they were decent, and others felt like it was a student film. I felt confused at some points. Some that come to mind are the lighting when Elizabeth gets caught up in the storm, there was some blue light but it was mostly very dark and hard to see. The camera following her reminded me of the Blair Witch Project.

Final Thoughts

With the two strong leads (in my opinion), and a good storyline that adjusted and translated well from Regency England to modern-day (early 2000’s) Utah, USA, I am still hanging on to this fantasy of what it could be. It drives me nuts how much potential it had and then not utilized. Will I watch it again? Yes, but the relationship between me and this movie is dysfunctional.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

See Also:

Bride & Prejudice