Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Bride and Prejudice

was ok. I should note that I've never read Pride and Prejudice nor seen any of its adaptations, so I can't really say anything about faithfulness to source material.

The film starts out fine, with a number of lovely musical sequences. As the plot limps forward, propelled by the general listlessness of the romance between the leads, these quickly become sparser and less elaborate, and the film suffers as a result. The real talent of the film lies in the choreography of large numbers of people in vividly colored clothing, and it's a shame that the flick sticks all of the elaborate musical numbers in the beginning, leaving only half-assed scraps for the latter half, taken up by a generally dull romance and a confusing complication about a guy hooking up with somebody's sister which apparently is really, really bad. Thanks to the imdb, I've learned that kissing is a taboo in these films. In the end, when the main couple finally hook up, they hug warmly while the guy fondly rubs the chick's shoulder. To somebody used to American conventions, this is laughable. And, in this case, I think we've got it right.

All in all, if you had to choose between this and poking your eyes out with a sharp stick, choose this. Between this and Gummo,* well...

*Fun fact: if you search imdb for Gummo, the first result you get is for Judy Garland, nee Frances Ethel Gumm.

2 comments:

Amanda G. said...

I was entertained by the movie, but I was not wowed. The elaborate dance numbers, especially the first one (at the wedding) and the "no life w/o wife" were really cool, and I agree the second half was lacking in a major way. Also, the so-called Mr. Darcy was not Mr. Darcy!

Matt said...

The so-called Mr. Darcy was a block of wood.