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DiscountDelight - Pride & Prejudice (Widescreen Edition)
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $11.99
Your Save: $ 7.99 ( 40% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Directed By: Joe Wright (IV)
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0025192807220
Format: AC-3
Label: Universal Studios
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Universal Studios
Release Date: 2006-02-28
Running Time: 129
Studio: Universal Studios
Theatrical Release Date: 2005-11-23
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Elegant, romantic, and touching!
Comment: I loved the romance on Pride and Prejudice. It's like a fairy tale. I can't understand why there are people who hate this movie. It's captivating, mind-blowing, and sweet.
Well, there's something that I like to recommend. It's called Bride and Prejudice, it's a fun and lovely Indian musical movie which has been my fave too.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Save your money. Do something else with your 2 hours
Comment: We're pretty accepting of second rate remakes. But this one is just too bad. The characters are 2 dimensional at best. Knightly's acting is -- well, it isn't acting.
The story line is only slightly muddled. Silly liberties were taken, throughout that modernized a story that doesn't need to be modernized.
Several thumbs down.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautifully-made version of a timeless classic
Comment: From the breathtaking English countryside to the finely-honed performances, this movie is a real delight. All of Jane Austen's characters are there: the long-suffering Mr. Bennett, the manic, matchmaking Mrs. Bennett, the lovely Jane, the feisty Elizabeth, the dour Mr. Darcy, the affable Mr. Bingley, and the imperious Lady Catherine. Many of the lines are taken directly from the book, and the important plots and subplots are all there. The sharp divisions between social classes are evident, as is the scheming behind who is to marry which man and receive which yearly income. The casting is superb, from Donald Sutherland as the befuddled and very much outnumbered male in the Bennett household to Judi Dench, in the small but pivotal role of Lady Catherine. "Pride and Prejudice" is one of my favorite books and this movie truly does it justice.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Hot and sexy, in a mannered English drawing room style!
Comment: Pride and Prejudice is an old favorite of mine. Austen has a knack for writing about relationships. There is a fine subterranean stream of masked sexuality contrasting with the formal social necessities of her era that create a wonderful tension in her novels. The director picked up on this element and created a wonderful movie.
Pride and Prejudice was gorgeously and authentically filmed. The period was pre-regency--in the early Napoleonic wars--one not so commonly portrayed. The men pose in outfits that evoke some of the portraits of Napoleon. All of the locations are stunning making the most of ancient trees and beautiful mansions.
The film portrayed the ramifications of what it meant to be the daughters of poor gentry in this era. The girls simply must marry in order to survive. Yet they were looked down upon for their aspirations to marry well. Also, their lower social status made them prey to men who might exploit these women for sex. In most cases marriages were simply financial transactions--merging of assets.
Matt McFayden was the perfect choice to play the proud man who is humbled by his love for a woman impossible for him to marry because she is not in his social class. When he decides that his love for her is so great he cannot be without her, his pride and a series of misunderstandings cause Lizzy (Keira Knightly) to reject him. McFayden and Knightly play the star-crossed lovers with the restrained intensity called for by the social manners of the time. In particular McFayden is devastating as the heart-broken lover.
This movie succeeded visually, as a psychological portrait of a social era and most importantly as a great romance.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Romantic yearning hasn't looked this sexy onscreen in years.
Comment: Instant name recognition aside, literary adaptations have a lot stacked against them from the start. Not only do they have to live up to the source material, they have to feel necessary. Sure, Kenneth Branagh's 1996 Hamlet was an unwieldy mess, but it didn't help that Franco Zeffirelli and Mel Gibson had done a serviceable job by it in 1990. And viewers apparently didn't feel a need to embrace yet another version of Oliver Twist, even one from Roman Polanski. Similarly, the beloved 1995 British miniseries version of Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice casts a long shadow over the newest version, directed by Joe Wright and written by Deborah Moggach--both British TV vets making their full-length theatrical debuts. But after about half a scene, it's clear this new version will cast a pretty long shadow of its own.
The film opens--sans Austen's famous first lines--on the Bennett house, portrayed as a vibrant, lively, noisy, messy place whose everyday activity shoots up to fever pitch at the news of the imminent arrival of Simon Woods, a wealthy, single neighbor. Sensing a good--or at least financially sound--match for her eldest daughter Rosamund Pike, Brenda Blethyn sets about making sure Pike doesn't escape Woods' attention. Meanwhile, Blethyn's next-to-eldest daughter Keira Knightley meets Woods' distant friend Matthew MacFadyen, and they take an instant dislike to each other. (It doesn't last.)
From there, Wright clicks through Austen's familiar impediments to true love, but he never forgets he's making a movie, not porting a book to a new medium. He fills every corner of his widescreen compositions and keeps the camera as lively as his cast, overlapping dialogue � la Robert Altman and choreographing his ballroom sequences in ways that go well beyond the steps on the dance floor. Most importantly, the director, script, and cast (rounded out by Judi Dench and well-placed imports Donald Sutherland and Jena Malone) all recognize that Austen is about much more than pretty costumes and knowing looks. The film captures the financial stakes behind Blethyn's compulsive matchmaking, the lonely fates of unattached and "ruined" women, the games the upper classes play to keep the middle class in its place, and the persistent, understated sexual urgency beneath the polite surface of everyday life.
All the elements get dissolved in the slow-boiling romance between Knightley (striking just the right note of pre-feminist pride) and MacFadyen, whose strong, slightly puzzled-looking features register each lesson as he learns it. And he learns quickly. Wright wastes no time in squeezing the plot into his just-over-two hours running time, but the film never feels rushed, particularly when so much of it is spent watching and waiting, as the characters come to understand the world they live in--and that even with its hypocrisies, love still means more than anyone can put into words.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Literary adaptations just don't get any better than director Joe Wright's 2005 version of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice. The key word here is adaptation, because Wright and gifted screenwriter Deborah Moggach have taken liberties with Austen's classic novel that purists may find objectionable, but in this exquisite film their artistic decisions are entirely justified and exceptionally well executed. It's a more rural England that we see here, circa 1790 (as opposed to Austen's early 19th century), in which Elizabeth Bennet (Keira Knightley) is one of several sisters primed for marriage, with an anxious mother (Brenda Blethyn) only too desperate to see her daughters paired off with the finest, richest husbands available. Elizabeth is strong-willed and opinionated, but her head (not to mention her pride and prejudice) lead her heart astray when she meets the wealthy Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), whose own sense of decency and discretion (not to mention his pride and prejudice) prevent him from expressing his mutual affection. They're clearly meant for each other, and as Knightley's performance lights up the screen (still young enough to be girlishly impertinent, yet wise beyond her 20 years), Austen's timeless romance yields yet another timeless adaptation, easily on par with the beloved BBC miniseries that has been embraced by millions since originally broadcast in 1995. Individual tastes will vary as to which version should be considered "definitive," but with a stellar supporting cast including Judi Dench and Donald Sutherland, this impeccable production achieves its own kind of perfection. --Jeff Shannon
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