Favorite Movie Quote: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

I recently had the pleasure of watching Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for the third (?) time. It is such a fun adaption of the original work. I really do hope to get to the PPZ book soon as I am currently finishing up the original Pride and Prejudice.

As for today’s quote: The famed letter that Mr. Darcy writes to Elizabeth were he explains himself is beautiful across all the adaptions.The entirety of this letter is explanatory and heart breaking, but I am particularly fond of this paragraph:

Of all weapons in the world, I now know love to be the most dangerous. For I have suffered a mortal wound. When did I fall so deeply under your spell, Miss Bennet? I cannot fix the hour or the spot or the look or the words which lay the foundation. I was in the middle before I knew I began. But a proud fool I was. I have faced the harsh truth: that I can never hope to win your love in this life. – Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Here’s my review if you haven’t seen it yet!

 

June 14, 2017June 5, 2017 by Natasha Categories: 2016, 2017, Movies, movies, QuotesTags: Bella Heathcote, Charles Dance, Douglas Booth, Elizabeth Bennet, Jack Huston, Jane Austen, Jane Austen adaptions, Lena Headley, Lily James, Matt Smith, Movies, Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sam Reiley, zombies 2 Comments

Movie Review: Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Plot: Sparks fly when spirited Elizabeth Bennet meets single, rich, and proud Mr. Darcy. But Mr. Darcy reluctantly finds himself falling in love with a woman beneath his class. Can each overcome their own pride and prejudice?

Continuing on my slightly unhealthy craze of Pride and Prejudice and all things Elizabeth and Mr. Bennet related, I had to watch this 2005 adaption again. I can’t find a review for it anywhere on my blog, and I know I’ve seen it before – is it possible that I did it pre-blog? I’ll never know!

I had a great time. I remember enjoying it the first time but not really appreciating the ending back then – I think I didn’t get at that stage just how British this story is and how perfect that ending was.

There are a number of changes made, but it was organic– I didn’t feel that it deducted from the story at all. The changes made were done to fit the span of the book into a movie, so a lot of information and pivotal scenes were ignored. As I said it didn’t damage the film much, but the book certainly provides a more comprehensive scope of Darcy’s character and the change Elizabeth was able to inspire in him.

Matthew MacFadyen is truly a perfect Darcy. He is a wonderful actor, truly being able to convey emotions without saying too much. He is perfectly British and his contained atmosphere and telling outbursts as Mr. Darcy is spot on.

My love/hate relationship with Keira Knightley seems set to continue. The way she has of pulling her mouth frustrates me to no end. But, as I listed here, the fact that she has an annoying mouth does not derive from the fact that she is an accomplished actress. Ms. Bennet is as challenging to a female lead as Mr. Darcy is to a male lead – complex, intelligent characters with the weight of being a beloved classic weighing them down. She manages her role admirably and is a delight as Ms. Bennet, and has sufficient and delightful levels of impertinence that made me love her all the more.

Rosamund Pike as Jane Bennet was a choice that I was not that all that pleased with, but she did her best. There was a desperation to her impression of Jane that I did not enjoy – Jane is shy and sweet natured and a bit too believing in the best of others, but she isn’t a desperate woman. Jenna Malone as Lydia Bennet was a perfect choice – Lydia is really the worst thing, she is a flirting little girl with no sense or morals or particular care for her family. It takes a strong actress to bring that particular disregard to family and tradition to life, and the callousness with which Lydia does it as well. Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennet properly emanates that exhaustion Mr.Bennetmust feel from a lifetime with the skittish and irritating Mrs. Bennet (Brenda Blethyn) – who can’t but help being such an annoying person. I wish I could have seen more of Rupert Friend as Mr. Wickham – he was good on screen but not particularly often on it, which is frustrating as Mr. Wickham is quite important to the events that unfold. I wish I liked Simon Woods as Charles Bingley – he was just too ginger for my idea as Bingley. I did like Kelly Reilly as Caroline Bingley – she was as snobbish and backhanded and mean spirited as her character requires.

I felt similarly in the book – a need to rush through and to get to the end to know everything, but the pacing was slow and careful and makes you subsequently pay a lot more attention. The British countryside is beautiful despite the depressing weather, and the director managed to capture it and incorporate it into this very British movie.

The ending of the film is different to the book only in execution, with the phrases altered slightly but still much the same. It is powerful and touching, and the chemistry between Knightley and MacFayden is through the roof at that very moment. I’ve seen the extended version and the normal version, and the extended is a lot more true to what happens in the book.

I enjoyed this adaption so much. It is a great cast, it is well paced and despite missing some key events it still tells what it needs to tell. Watching this soon again is inevitable. An 8.5/10 for me.

 

June 7, 2017June 14, 2017 by Natasha Categories: Movies, movies, Review, Reviews, RomanceTags: Beautiful, Brenda Blethyn, Carey Mulligan, classic, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Bennet, English, feminism, Jane Austen, Jena Malone, Judi Dench, Keira Knightley, Kelly Reilly, literature, Love, Matthew MacFayden, Mr. Bingley, Mr. Charles Bingley, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, Mrs. Bennet, Romance, Rosamund Pike, Rupert Friend, Talulah Riley, Tamzin Merchant, Tom Hollander 11 Comments

Book Review: Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

Plot: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s witty comedy of manners—one of the most popular novels of all time—that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues. Renowned literary critic and historian George Saintsbury in 1894 declared it the “most perfect, the most characteristic, the most eminently quintessential of its author’s works,” and Eudora Welty in the twentieth century described it as “irresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be.”
–penguinrandomhouse.com 

I started to write this already at the halfway mark of the book, so as to not forget any of my thoughts. I can tell you that I am going to pretend I am British for another week now (the same inevitably happens when I watch Downton Abbey). I had the best time working through Pride and Prejudice and can really not think of a time this year when I felt so content reading any book.

This is finally a successful attempt at reading Pride and Prejudice – the first time I picked it up I only managed to get through half of the book. I have no idea why, perhaps I just wasn’t as inclined as I was this time around. I watched Pride and Prejudice and Zombies AGAIN the other day, and I love the 2005 adaption of this novel with Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFayden. The plot speaks to me on many levels – the unerring feminism of Elizabeth Bennet, the courage of Jane Austen to write about Elizabeth Bennet, the love story between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. I can tell you now that I find difficult people so much more appealing than the Mr. Bingleys of the world. Their loyalty is ultimately more rewarding and unyielding. Pride can be attractive in any person. Mr. Darcy is a difficult man, but truly appealing. It is fun to find a character that isn’t written in the typical hero fashion – he’s so ornery and stubborn and proud.

The differences between the movies and the original work are perhaps not significant but the book is naturally more illustrative to the characters. Mr. Wickham is even slimier than his onscreen presence shows, Mr. Collins is a phenomenal, pompous and amazingly irritating pain in the ass.  Mrs. Bennet is truly an embarrassment to her offspring. Her antics are mortifying and she has a cold disregard to Elizabeth that is not shown often in a film adaption. She never ceased her ambition to have her daughters favorably married. Whatever true care she felt for each of them was very much overshadowed by her need to see her daughters settled with men of high fortunes. It was embarrassing.

There is only one section that felt tiresome eventually. The section where Lydia runs of with Wickham is pivotal in the romance of Elizabeth and Darcy, but it really took an extraordinary amount of pages to get through. The conclusion of Pride and Prejudice is the most delightful British ending you can hope for. Feelings are expressed in the utmost British way – please tell me they are still like this! – and the overpowering sweetness of Darcy’s happiness when Elizabeth expresses her love and admiration is lovely. I really did enjoy how sweet he became eventually when he was around her, and that the strength of his feelings could make him do such introspection and radical personal change.

The theme of the book is clear the very descriptive title, but there are also themes of family, learning to look deeper into a person and not expressing yourself in anger – Elizabeth’s family had quite the shock when she professed to love the man she had been so against the majority of the time she’d known him.

Pride and Prejudice really isn’t a quick and easy read, and it takes time to get yourself acquainted with the author’s writing. It is high English, and it was a good exercise for me as a predominantly Afrikaans speaking person to read through it. You also really need to be in the mood to read this book, it isn’t going to be pleasing or successful if you want a fast read.

I am giving this a 9.5/10. It is a very high rating, yes, but I found it very deserving of the classic cult status and many adaptions it has gone through. I really enjoyed it so much! One of my favorite books this year!

May 17, 2017May 17, 2017 by Natasha Categories: 2017, Books, reading, Review, ReviewsTags: Books, Classic novels, Elizabeth Bennet, England, Jane Austen, literature, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, Mr. Wickham, Pride and Prejudice, Reading, Review, The Bennets 6 Comments

Movie Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

Plot: Five sisters in 19th century England must cope with the pressures to marry while protecting themselves from a growing population of zombies

Rating: 8.5/10

ERRR-EM-GHEE. I LOVED THIS.

Okay, now that that is out of the way, let me tell you, this film was tailor made for me. I am 1) a huge fan of the original work despite having to fully read the book 2) detailing on that means that I’ve seen the 2005 movie with Keira Knightley and Matthew McFayden and I consider myself an expert 3) I’ve read the book about halfway but olden English can be challenging and I’m just an Afrikaans Girl in an English world – which should be a song or at least a blogpost 4) I’ll stop sounding deranged now and actually review this.

This movie is really Pride and Prejudice but with Zombies. Exactly. It is based on the successful adaption / parody by Seth Graham-Smith, and if the book is like the movie, I am so on board with reading it (a little flip from how I usually approach things). I’m a little sad that this film didn’t do great in cinema because it is so much fun.

I thought Lily James made the perfect Elizabeth Bennet. Ms. Bennet has always been the original feminist, and adding some ass kicking skills to her resume only made her seem more so. Excluding Mr. Darcy, the females in the film does the majority of zombie slashing and there is an underlying humor that suggests that the men are a bit more afraid than the ladies of zombies. Lily was as sassy and as proper as Jane requires of a character, and had undeniable chemistry with Sam Riley – a crucial element in making the relationship dynamic between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth work out.

Initially I was a bit concerned with Mr. Darcy being portrayed by Sam Riley. It is a really difficult thing to pull off – being a bit of a prick while still being able to be compelling and attractive. Sam Riley has a really weird voice – it took a while to get used to. However, he was able to portray the character with conviction and before long I was so on board with him. He was tormented and unamused and serious and it was so hot man. The chemistry between Lily James and Sam Riley is kind of through the roof. It was really hot in a dignified way.

As for the rest of the cast, you will see some Charles Dance and Lena Headley, Matt Smith and Douglas Booth (notably). There were some new names that I haven’t seen on screen before, like Bella Heathcote that did a really good job with Jane Bennet, a tricky role because the character needs to be beautiful and shy without being a pain in the ass. Jack Huston played Mr. Wickham. I’m starting to recognize Huston more and more on screen and he seems to be a fine actor that is going somewhere. He has a specific period look that suited the film well, and was sufficiently slimy in his portrayal of Mr. Wickham. Lena Headley was way underused – the woman has a comedic ability that is suppressed in Game of Thrones. I am always a huge fan of any person that emits sarcasm through every pore in their body and Headley manages that with aplomb.

The pace of the film is good, it is neither too long nor too short. I was ready to riot a few minutes before the end – watch it to see why – and I was spared this use of energy a few moments later when I was really happy with the end.

I really never knew that I needed a version of Pride vs. Prejudice with zombies, but let me tell you, my life is so much better for it now!

September 30, 2016September 30, 2016 by Natasha Categories: 2016, Movies, Review, Reviews, RomanceTags: Bella Heathcote, Charles Dance, Douglas Booth, Elizabeth Bennet, Jack Huston, Lena Headey, Lily James, Matt Smith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sam Riley, Seth Graham-Smith 18 Comments