1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 83: Pride and prejudice

Karin wanted to sit through this BBC miniseries – one of her staples – while on (unpaid) maternity leave. So we did. It was my second viewing. I enjoyed it better this time, probably because we watched 50, not 150, minutes each night.

As you’d expect, the dialog is witty, and there’s lovely scenery, architecture, costuming, etc. But it’s the reaction shots that distinguish this production. Whenever some fool runs his or her mouth, Miss Elizabeth Bennet (Jennifer Ehle) and Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy (Colin Firth) cast exquisitely disparaging looks: Lizzy’s, half-pained, half-amused; Darcy’s, woeful. (Firth, who is always turning to the wall, seems physically ill in two-thirds of his scenes.) Other superior persons – notably, old Mr Bennet (Benjamin Whitrow) and Miss Caroline Bingley (Anna Chancellor, a.k.a. “Duckface”) – are more overtly contemptuous. As for the fools that these higher beings must endure: Mrs Bennet (Alison Steadman) and Mr Collins (David Bamber) are too ridiculous for my taste, but Miss Lydia Bennet (Julia Sawalha) is superb; she isn’t stupid so much as lively, ignorant, and selfish. (I knew a girl at school who looked and acted like Lydia. She was amusing – and rather a dear – at arm’s length; her closer associates suffered. Happily, she did grow up.)

I needn’t rehash the plot of Pride and Prejudice. The themes are matchmaking and, especially, money.

“How long have you loved him?”

“Well, it’s been coming on so gradually, I hardly know. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”

As for the actors, it might be useful to list some of their other notable performances.

(1) Julia Sawalha (Miss Lydia Bennet): A Midwinter’s Tale, reviewed by me. She’s just as lively in that movie. She has kept on getting parts, but I know of nothing comparable to her mid-nineties work. Her looks haven’t deserted her. Her youthfulness has.

(2) Susannah Harker (Miss Jane Bennet): Midsomer Murders, s12e02, “The Black Book.” The most intriguing murder suspect in that hilarious episode.

(3) Barbara Leigh Hunt (Lady Catherine de Bourgh). Strangled in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy.

(4) Adrian Lukis (Mr Wickham): Blair Toast, Stephen Toast’s insufferable military brother, in Toast of London.

(5) Emilia Fox (Miss Giorgiana Darcy), of the prolific Fox family. Kind-faced, handsome, unremarkable. Such actors are necessary. Typical work: the everlasting autopsy/⁠forensics drama, Silent Witness. Atypical work: Cashback, as a supermarket checkout girl. Most effective work: as one of the blondes in Roman Polanski’s Pianist.

(6) David Bamber (Mr Collins). He is in absolutely everything. My choice is his turn as a harried piano teacher/⁠road accident victim in the miniseries Collision.

(7) “Duckface” (Miss Caroline Bingley): Four Weddings, of course. Honorable mention: Ken Stott’s love interest in the lurid crime series The Vice.

The best tribute to this Pride and Prejudice is this YouTuber’s, who re-enacted it by himself.

I am reminded of Snoopy’s unabridged sock-puppet show of War and Peace, which goes on for days and is viewed, in its entirety, only by Linus.

Correction (29 Jan): Lucy. Give her her due!