My husband and I went to see P & P on Thursday just past. For the book that they had to compress into just over 2 hours long, they didn't do a bad job. I did like the 'hand-made' look of the clothes, the Bennet girls in particular, and overall, I found very little to pick at over the costuming. But WHY did they have to dress Keira Knightley in such generally dark, ugly colours? The messy hair thing was a bit irritating, but understandable, I guess, in view of the impression of the time and the family that the film-makers were going for.
What *did* irritate me, was the disregard of the propriety / period manners / modes of conduct - Mr Bingley would NEVER have actually gone into the sickroom where a sick, unmarried, *unrelated* female guest was lying, even if she was chaperoned; to the door to inquire after the invalid, perhaps, but never actually *into* the room. And the scene on the bridge at dawn? Beautifully romantic, but even a strong-minded woman like Elizabeth would never have behaved in such a manner. It just wouldn't have happened. These two are the most glaring examples that I remember. They also were not quite successful in marrying the scriptwriter's dialogue with dialogue from the book - the difference was noticeable, from the informality of the 'modern' dialogue to suddenly having the characters speaking the original, much more formal dialogue of the book. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie ( so did my husband! ) and thought that altogether it was worth seeing, but I do think that as far as being true to the book, the 1995 BBC series was much better. My bit more than 2 cents worth. Joannah. _____________________________________________________________ Sluggy.Net: The Sluggy Freelance Community! _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
