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Published Letters: 1
This review, as well as the one for the 2005 P&P, seem to favor the exchange of quietly nuanced accurate portrayals for the modernized, sexed-up versions. The movie sounds trite, what with the alpha hero introducing sex and mixing with the lower classes to show his manliness and fire, and I don't disagree with not liking it for some very good reasons.
Approaching it with blatant snobbery toward romanticism and the people who like fiction that falls into that genre has biased the review to the point of it being useless. Instead of finding the good points and groaning at the couple of dumb things that felt tacked-on to show Americans how non-stodgy the characters are, the whole thing is an elitist piece against the women who want to believe in the sort of love in Austen's novels. So what? The movie doesn't seem to be presenting itself as Art or Film in a way to merit it being examined as such.
The point of the review isn't about how it compares to the biography it was based on, but about how stupid women have to be to buy into it. Just because some women want romantic stories and love to get lost in Austen's (or anyone's) novels doesn't mean that they aren't intelligent or cultured. It's ironic that this movie is panned for heavy-handed modernizations, while the 2005 P&P is praised for removing the slow subtleties of the culture for faster and more blatant shortcuts.
