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Pride & Prejudice Our rating: Rate this movie   MPAA rating: PG (for some mild thematic elements) Genre: Drama, Romance Theater release: November 11, 2005 by Focus Features Limited release: November 11, 2005 Directed by: Joe Wright Runtime: 2 hours 6 minutes Cast: Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Bennet), Matthew MacFadyen (Mr. Darcy), Rosamund Pike (Jane Bennet), Brenda Blethyn (Mrs. Bennet), Donald Sutherland (Mr. Bennet), Tom Hollander (Mr. Collins), Judi Dench (Lady Catherine de Bourg), Simon Woods (Charles Bingley), Kelly Reilly (Caroline Bingley), Rupert Friend (Mr. Wickham), Claudie Blakley (Charlotte Lucas) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Why? That's the question many have asked when they heard that a new version of Jane Austen's classic Pride & Prejudice was being released. Why, when the 1995 A&E/BBC version is considered the gold standard? Why, when Colin Firth simply is Mr. Darcy? In other words, if it ain't broke, why try to fix it?

Keira Knightley, playing Elizabeth Bennet, brings the the right balance of self-assured and anguished to the role

Thankfully, director Joe Wright doesn't try to fix anything. Think of it this way: The A&E/BBC version is like a family portrait—a stunningly lit, artistically framed photograph that captures the family so true to life. This new 2005 version is more like an impressionist painting of the family—less detail and depth, but when you look at it from different angles, various shadings and nuance catch your eye. It's the same lovely story, just a different artistic rendering.

Of course, the family in this portrait is the Bennets—endearingly henpecked Mr. (Donald Sutherland) and annoyingly fussy Mrs. (Brenda Blethyn) and their five daughters, whose main hope for any sort of future is to marry well. After all, this is 18th century Britain, the family's experiencing some financial distress, and money and estates are passed through sons. So when one single and rich Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods) moves into town, the Bennet house becomes a twittering, giggling mess.

At a local ball soon after his arrival, Bingley spends most of the evening dancing with the eldest Bennet, Jane (Rosamund Pike). She's the prettiest of the sisters by far, and therefore holds the brunt of the burden of marrying well and elevating the family to financial security. Bingley is accompanied by his conniving sister, Caroline (Kelly Reilly), and his long-faced friend Mr. Darcy (Matthew MacFadyen), who second-oldest daughter Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) overhears insulting her later the night of the ball. Lizzie thinks Darcy a big boor, and soon Bingley begins to question shy Jane's affections. As with any good Austen story, wrong impressions are made, bad people lie about good people, good people fall for bad people, and everything gets untwisted most pleasantly by the end.

Donald Sutherland is excellent as the father to all of the Bennet girls

But this is familiar information for many moviegoers who will flock to this flick. What's new, however, is the subtle symbolism throughout the film. Especially in the form of birds, which we see running wild on the Bennet property and sitting primly in cages—and each of those scenes is directly related to what's happening to the girls just before or after. For example, in one scene, Lady Catherine (played by the definitively regal Judi Dench) demands that Lizzie play something on the piano for their dinner guests. When Lizzie assures her she's not very good on the piano, Lady Catherine persists. Just behind our Lizzie in this awkward exchange are big cages of birds—mirroring what she must feel at the moment: caged by her society's expectations of what makes a proper woman, by her social standing and gender. Toward the end of the film when our girls are getting happily paired off, pay attention to the swans on the lake—their number and their apparent attitude.

Judi Dench, as Lady Catherine de Bourg, elevates any film she graces

There are similar recurring scenes of spinning—especially when Lizzie's notions about people and love are challenged and this young woman with a strong sense of self is thrown off-kilter. And several times we see women caught in fierce rains and winds because they have no shelter, an apt picture indeed of unmarried women in this time period.

If the aforementioned question of why a new Pride & Prejudice is answered satisfactorily, what about the issue of how on earth you can cram hundreds of pages of Jane Austen brilliance—which took the A&E/BBC version five hours to do justice—into one two-hour flick? Wouldn't that be like sending our beloved heroines Elizabeth and Jane Bennet to a modern-day speed-dating event?

While the plot does move along at a brisk pace, from the opening scenes the movie is mercifully allowed to breathe. Time is taken to catch the sun's rays shining through the trees onto our Lizzie, who's walking and reading at a leisurely pace. In one of the rollicking ball scenes, we get to see a whole dance's worth of cat and mouse between Elizabeth and Darcy. Later, when a manor is shut up for the season, the camera lingers on two servants billowing out a sheet to cover the furniture. In fact, the whole film is a visual feast of textures (brocade, silk, animal fur, stone pillars, marble statues, fire) and breathtaking English countryside, often accessorized by early morning mist.

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