Technically, the 1995 mini was the most efficiently made adaptation of P&P, but as far as interpretive reading goes, it was an atrocious depiction of what Jane Austen is all about. The Joe Wright's version is an adolescent girl's attempt in rewriting P&P as a Bronte fable. Pauline Kael was actually right when she said that the 1940 movie was more Dickens than Austen. The Andrew Davis take was an uncomfortable attempt at drugging poor Jane into William Thackeray's territory. (Unfortunately, Jennifer Ehle – a fine actress - was playing Elizabeth Bennet as Amelia instead of Becky Sharp, while sour faced Firth was forecasting the later film by playing Darcy as a poor man’s Mr. Rochester).
There is something elusive in Austen's writing which is best served, dramatically wise, by such unattractive characteristics as subtle humor, restraint, distance, even a touch of alienation. This kind of slightly somber approach doesn't make for a crowd-pleasing candy, but when taken, the results are much better, as was, for example, the case of the 1995 version of Persuasion. And that same year, Emma Thompson and Ang Lee successfully managed to mask the basic gloominess and subversiveness of their take on S&S in a very sly way.
My favorite filmed version of P&P is still the 1980 mini. Slightly static, heavy going and too studio bound at times, marred by some wooden acting, it is the most intelligent and perceptive reading of the novel (by feminist writer Fay Walden, author of She Devil, whose "Letters to Alice, on first reading Jane Austen" is very illuminating too). It is also the best cast version physically. From Elizabeth Garvie relatively small frame body and huge eyes, perfect for Elizabeth Bennet as written, to the striking resemblance between David Rintoul's Darcy and Judy Parfitt's Lady Catherine, which demonstrates the fact that she is what he was about to become with age had he not met Elizabeth. And Walden got the politics and history of the Bennets’ marriage just right – in exactly the opposite way from Andrew Davis' misogynistic take. In hers, Mr. Bennet, who should have known better, is the villain, while Mrs. Bennet is doing her best with the limited cards she was dealt. (And while we're at it – it was a match based on physical attraction alone, hence the five children born in six years, an attraction which, on his side, completely succumbed to some kind of a seventh-year-itch he was having, which she was totally unaware of).
Jane Austen's is such multi layered writing, so it can easily be striped of whatever is more profound or subversive or challenging and still, the skeletal story telling will be enjoyed by many, especially when covered with manipulative romantic fat. I don't like it, but I'm afraid this is what made JA into such a hot commodity for many years, so this is what we'll be fed with in the future too.
