Joe Wright made Pride & Prejudice feel fresh all over again

Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen shine as one of the most iconic couples in rom-com history

By Caroline Siede  |  February 11, 2022 | 6:00am
Image: Photo: Libby McGuire
Film Features When Romance Met Comedy
Joe Wright made Pride & Prejudice feel fresh all over again

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the best moment in 2005’s Pride & Prejudice is a close-up of a hand. After a tense social call, proud Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen) surprises pert Elizabeth Bennet (Keira Knightley) by wordlessly helping her into her carriage. Before she’s even had time to register what’s happening, he’s already striding away, his hand leaping out of its skin at the experience of having briefly touched hers.

Joe Wright’s sterling adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic romance lives in the contrast between wide shots and close-ups—the former emphasizing the film’s stately setting, while the latter highlights the private emotions hidden behind Regency-era formality. And in just four much-GIFed seconds, Wright demonstrates how a dash of visual intimacy can bring Austen’s centuries-old source material to vivid, sexy life.

The hand flex was something Macfadyen spontaneously did while performing the scene, and when Wright spotted it, he insisted on getting a close-up. The 33-year-old first-time feature director often worked that way—encouraging his actors to live in their space as naturally as possible and then capturing the authentic moments that arose between them. The film was shot entirely on location, much of it at the 17th-century Groombridge Place manor that stood in for the Bennet family home. After a three-week rehearsal process, the cast broke in the set by playing sardines in the house. And since the Bennets were each assigned their own bedroom, the actors would often just hang out in their characters’ respective rooms between takes rather than heading back to their trailers.

The result is a period romance that feels as chaotically alive as it does artfully choreographed. When people talk about the stunning visuals of Wright’s film, they’re usually referring to his gorgeous compositions: Lizzy standing on a windswept cliff, Darcy striding across a misty moor, the young lovers touching foreheads as the sun rises behind them. But Wright is also incredibly smart about interpreting Austen’s savvy prose in visual terms. Pride & Prejudice (the ampersand was added for the film) is a story about dualities: the gulf between our first impressions and our true natures; the differences between our public behavior and our private thoughts. And Wright’s camera playfully reflects those themes, from quick zooms that zero in on a character’s internal panic to smash cuts that juxtapose behind-the-scenes chaos with polite public presentation.

Though Wright’s adaptation emerged in the shadow of the six-part BBC/A&E miniseries that gave the world Colin Firth fever in 1995, it was actually only the second big screen adaptation of Austen’s signature story. (The first was a 1940 studio picture that reimagined the material as a sort of Victorian-era comedic romp starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier.) That’s kind of remarkable given that there’s perhaps no single piece of literature more influential on the modern-day romantic comedy genre than Austen’s 1813 novel, which took the oil-and-water dynamic of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and grounded it in a social realism anchored in a female point of view. Not only has Austen’s Pride And Prejudice inspired modern day retellings like Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bride And Prejudice, and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, you can also see its influence on rom-coms ranging from The Philadelphia Story to When Harry Met Sally to The Ugly Truth.

When it comes to period adaptations, the 1995 version is the choice for Austen purists, many of whom scoffed at the way Wright’s two-hour movie simplified the source material and traded Austen’s wry social satire for a brooding Romanticism in the vein of Wuthering Heights. Though the screenplay by Deborah Moggach returns to the novel’s focus on Lizzy, Wright makes the Bennets poorer and kinder than they are in Austen’s original tale, pulling more from the “muddy hem” sentimentality of Little Women than from Austen’s icy critique of dysfunctional parenting. (Greta Gerwig’s 2019 Little Women adaptation, in turn, feels like it owes a lot to Wright’s chaotically lived-in aesthetic.)

But what Wright’s version lacks in fidelity, it makes up for in originality. Wright doesn’t rewrite Austen so much as take her pre-existing pieces and reconfigure them in slightly different ways, bringing new layers to Pride & Prejudice’s familiar enemies-to-lovers arc.

The most inspired choice Wright makes is to lean into the idea that Darcy isn’t arrogant so much as socially awkward. It’s why Macfadyen’s casting is so genius. The energy that makes him such a stellar comic buffoon on Succession is exactly what makes him such a great romantic leading man in Pride & Prejudice. (Summing up the shock a lot of people now feel at Macfadyen’s range, Knightley recalled, “When I went in to read with Matthew, I was so blown away that I virtually couldn’t get my lines out. I just kept staring at him thinking, ‘What the hell happened between you walking in as Matthew and you starting to read?’”) What Lizzy initially perceives as Darcy’s rudeness is mostly just social anxiety or failed attempts at banter. When Darcy eventually explains, “I do not have the talent of conversing easily with people I have never met before,” it seems less like an excuse and more like a man vulnerably trying to explain a genuine difficulty in his life.

It’s a savvy interpretation of the inherent dichotomy of Mr. Darcy, an intensely principled man who’s beloved by his friends, family, and servants yet dismissed as standoffish by strangers. Here he’s clearly the kind of guy who’s only really comfortable in his own space, around people he knows. And Wright’s more sympathetic take on Darcy also makes Elizabeth pricklier by comparison. Each time they meet, Darcy tries to course correct from a previous blunder, but Lizzy is too stubborn to see these imperfect gestures as anything but further confirmation of his bad first impression. (“I could more easily forgive his vanity had he not wounded mine,” she admits to one of her sisters.) In the 1995 version, Jennifer Ehle plays Lizzy as an endearing, intelligent rom-com everywoman. In the 2005 version, Knightley plays her as a little bit more of a brat, with a touch of Emma Woodhouse hubris to overcome.

That too was part of Wright’s intentional decision to bring a youthful vigor to this classic romance; to make it a story of young love and immature prejudice. He cast actors who matched the ages of their characters on the page (Knightley was just 20 when she made the film). And he set the story circa 1797, the year a 21-year-old Austen first started working on an initial draft (then titled First Impressions), rather than in 1813 when the novel was published. Though that subtle shift in time period was mostly a way to avoid the empire waists Wright hated in favor of a more relaxed style of costuming, it also loosely places the story against the backdrop of European-wide anxiety over the French Revolution. Change is in the air and there’s a wildness to Wright’s Pride & Prejudice, which turns Lizzy and Darcy’s first dance into a fantasy of heated isolation and relocates many of the novel’s drawing room scenes outdoors where the weather can reflect the emotions of the characters.

That’s especially true of Darcy’s rain-soaked first proposal, which encompasses so much of the funny/sexy blend this adaptation does so well. Macfadyen starts the scene with a burst of anxious energy, as if Darcy thinks it’s the most rational thing in the world to begin his proposal by listing off all of Elizabeth’s faults. Though she’s understandably offended, the duo nevertheless go from screaming at each other to almost kissing in that classic “I love you”/“I hate you” screwball comedy way. Even in anger, their chemistry is palpable. And while the 1995 version lets the frustration of the failed proposal fester for a while, the 2005 version softens it almost immediately. When Firth’s Darcy writes a follow-up letter, it’s out of defensive anger at being insulted and misrepresented. When Macfadyen’s Darcy does so, it’s in the apologetic tone of a man who realizes he’s far better at communicating in writing than he is in person.

Aided by a terrific score and sumptuous costuming and production design, Wright charts Lizzy and Darcy’s romance in a visceral, evocative way. He sucks you into the story rather than just presenting it as a drawing room comedy to appreciate from afar. In Wright’s signature long takes, the camera is an active, subjective force. Sometimes it hangs back to capture a tableau of public embarrassment, like when Mr. Collins (Tom Hollander) makes the social faux pas of trying to make small talk with Darcy without a formal introduction. Other times, it zooms in to highlight a private gesture, like Darcy’s friend Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods) lightly grazing a ribbon on his paramour’s dress.

I could write a whole separate article just about how fantastic the entire supporting cast of this film is, from Hollander’s hilariously self-important Mr. Collins to Woods’ sweetly daffy Bingley to Claudie Blakley’s warmly pragmatic Charlotte Lucas to Brenda Blethyn and Donald Sutherland as Lizzy’s loving but frequently misguided parents. Rosamund Pike’s luminous Jane isn’t just my favorite performance in the film but perhaps my favorite Austen performance full stop. Yet the greatest testament to these supporting actors’ skills is that their characters feel so fully realized despite how relatively little screentime they get in an adaptation that largely narrows its focus to Darcy and Elizabeth.

What Wright’s Pride & Prejudice loses in worldbuilding breadth, it makes up for in relationship depth. Though I’ve seen this movie dozens of times, I still find new layers on each repeat viewing. This time around it was in the funny, sweet, wistful little scene where Lizzy and Darcy unexpectedly bump into each other at his estate after his failed first proposal. There’s a clever reversal at play here; Lizzy is now the socially awkward one who can barely get a sentence out while Darcy is eager to make her feel warm and welcome. Knightley and Macfadyen are as great in their comedic chemistry as they are in their heated passion. And there are so many wonderful little touches in their performances, from the way she keeps desperately plastering on a panicked smile to the tender way he says “Yes. Yes, I know” when Lizzy turns down his offer to accompany her back to the village with the excuse that she’s fond of walking.

It’s a scene that pointedly ends with another shot of Darcy’s hand, this time empty and still; more at peace than in its initial vexed state but not as comfortable as it will be when Elizabeth finally kisses it after his successful second proposal. A big part of what makes Pride & Prejudice such a timeless story is the way it romanticizes the idea of second chances. Part of the fantasy is that Lizzy is able to persuade this rich, handsome man to let down his pride and embrace his inner Prince Charming. But it’s equally in the fact that Lizzy gets a second chance after making a bit of an ass of herself as well. There’s something incredibly romantic about how loyal Darcy remains to Lizzy, even as he gives her all the space she needs to figure out her own feelings.

Especially in Wright’s adaptation, which ups its heroine’s own flaws, Lizzy and Darcy are two people who push each other to be better, which is the sort of mutual self-actualization that the rom-com genre often does best. And though their sunrise reunion is one of the most stunningly cinematic shots in Wright’s film, it’s not without its human core too. When Darcy confesses his love, it’s not with the repetition of a poet but the awkward stammering of a man struggling to get his words out, “You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love… I love… I love you.”

Pride & Prejudice is a gorgeous example of the way age-old archetypes can be updated for new eras without losing their essence in the process, which is what the best romantic comedies have always done with Austen’s work over the years. With its unique take on Darcy’s social anxiety and Elizabeth’s own prideful nature, Wright brought the Austenmania of the ’90s into the 21st century, paving the way for the likes of Love & Friendship and 2020’s Emma.

And though Wright’s film largely does away with the satirical core of Austen’s work, it doesn’t lose sight of her sense of humor. For all its swooning romanticism, Pride & Prejudice is also laugh-out-loud funny, a reminder of the unique blend the rom-com genre delivers so well. Though this Pride & Prejudice may not entirely match Austen’s tone, it’s just as timelessly alive.

Next time: After four wonderful years, we bring this column to a close with How To Be Single.

 
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