I have a confession.
I've never read Pride and Prejudice.
I've never seen the movie, either. They made a movie, right?
All I knew about it was that it had a strong female character (characters?) and some guy named Darcy who made all the ladies post about impossibly perfect love and I continually got confused because I immediately pictured James D'arcy and was surprised at the number of Jarvis-loving friends I have. (Although not surprised at the mistaken love for Jarvis. I wouldn't mind a man like him in my life).
So that was my knowledge going into the movie. Oh, and that there were zombies. And Matt Smith.
It's now a little over 24 hours since I saw the film and I'm still how I feel. On the one hand, there are some really amazing elements to this movie. Darcy is quite the bad ass, the combination of pretty girls in dresses was never anything less than fantastic and the choreography and comedic timing were superb (I've decided that if the zombie apocalypse does happen I'm finding a group of ballet dancers).
Unfortunately the rest of the timing fell way below par. The movie suffers significantly from what I like to call "Potterization": putting together snippets of plot points and passing it off as story telling. It's difficult enough to abide by the rule of "show don't tell" when adapting a novel written at a time when verbosity was the norm. I found myself missing nearly everything the narrator told us in the beginning, except he doesn't really like France. I blame it on the Game of Thrones-esque map graphics, they were a lot to take in. Several times in the story we were given information that we were just supposed to accept as fact, despite there being no real evidence. The attraction between Jane and the rich guy who I initially thought was James Franco was done really well. The supposedly conflicting relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy? Not so much. I'm guessing this is what everyone loved so much about the original book, but I just wasn't buying it in the movie. I continued to play the "do they like each other or hate each other right now?" game, and won only because of my knowledge of how most stories go, despite the lack of on screen chemistry. Then there were other plot points that were just jumped to way too quickly. In an effort to not give too much away I won't go into details, but there was one fight scene in particular, between the living, that I still do not understand what happened to prompt it, and it was such a quick scene.
This seems to be a movie that is better after multiple viewings. Not because it has so many layers but because I'm sure that I can enjoy the brilliant elements once I'm not trying to fill in the blanks of the gaping holes left in the story. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the absolutely wonderful performance by Matt Smith as Mr. Collins, although for as much screen time as he had (and I loved every moment of) his character served very little purpose to the story I assume was being told.
This isn't the first time I've had this reaction to a Burr Steers directed film. Igby Goes Down also left me with the "I have no idea what just happened but I think I liked it" feeling. And I'm always willing to give the benefit of the doubt that the gaps of information I was missing can be found on the cutting room floor. But at just under 2 hours, I would have much preferred a longer film with a tighter story line.
I think this will be a very enjoyable film for those who are already fans of Pride and Prejudice, as it's a fun take on an old story. But they too may find that too much time was spent on what's been changed that they miss the familiar. The more I write the more questions I realize I have. So I'll leave it at that and eagerly await the next con I attend so I can count the number of girls in gowns with guns.