User reviews

I really wanted to like this movie. Modern day adaptations and twists on Austen can be wonderful, many on here have mentioned Clueless, another great one is the Lost in Austen miniseries.

The problem here is not so much the Mormon setting, but the limitations and constraints that Mormon culture appears to put on the writers in terms of plot. I gleaned enough of the cultural setting from other reviewers on here for that to more or less make sense (those reviewers are correct in that it's not very well explained/explained at all).

So what's good? It's nice, bright and colourful. Casting the five sisters as various college friends was an interesting idea. The main actress playing Elizabeth is very watchable. The actor playing Darcy is competent (even if he often looks uncannily like Adrian Lukas, who plays Wickham in the definitive BBC adaptation). Chemistry is more or less there. The quotes from Austen, had they been less hideously pinkly presented, were nearly an interesting touch.

The problem is tone. Austen's work is sharp and exacting, biting, witty and harsh. This was bland. It lacked edge. One got the sense that there was a culturally religious nicely-nicely thing going on here, and it just doesn't work with the background material.

There were slapstick moments that really jarred: particularly in "imagination" sequences - ie they didn't really happen. (Is slapstick perhaps a more tolerable form of humour to Mormons than satire or saucier wit?) Regardless, the movie should have had the guts to follow through with these moments if it wanted that tone, instead of: "no, not really! It didn't really happen, it was just in her mind!" every time. In doing so it weakened the heroine and made her look passive and victimy.

It's hard to fit a novel like Pride & Prejudice into a feature film length, as there are so many characters, and that weakness showed here. The writers would have been better to reduce the amount of female characters (Mary's and Charlotte's roles were mixed up anyway) and they did at least axe one of the Bingley sisters. But ultimately Kitty and Lydia felt very extraneous. From memory, Clueless was slimmed down in terms of supporting cast compared to Emma.

All in all it's a pleasant, visually colourful movie to watch. But it lacks edge, guts and is at times painfully naive. Which, given its religious subtext, is perhaps unsurprising.

As a devoted reader of the books of Jane Austen AND a card-carrying member of the LDS Church, I became very interested in this "Latter Day" version of "Pride and Prejudice" and finally had a chance to view it the other night. The plot of the movie basically follows the plot of the book with the action transferred to the modern-day campus of a predominantly LDS university.

As with most things, the movie succeeded on some levels and failed on others. I would like to address what I consider to be the failures first and then what worked well. If the filmmakers' goal was to market the movie to an LDS audience, then most of what I have to say in the next few paragraphs is irrelevant. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the LDS culture can appreciate most of the jokes and references. However, if they wanted a "break-out" movie (one that can be appreciated by ALL people) then the movie doesn't work as well. That's not to say the movie is an utter failure but it's missing some important elements that would make it more accessible to "nonMormon" audiences.

The reason we can appreciate "Pride and Prejudice" and the films based on that book is that it envelops us in the culture of that time. We may not understand all its references (things like "entailed away from the family line" or "Are all your sisters ‘out?'") but such things don't annoy us because we have the larger understanding (from our reading of the book) of the context in which the action is occurring. We know it's different and we have some idea as to why it's different.

`Pride and Prejudice: A Latter Day Comedy' doesn't provide the viewer with enough background to allow him or her to appreciate and understand (even if only superficially) the cultural differences. Movie watchers with no understanding of the Mormon culture never get a chance to realize how similar the culture of a modern Mormon university is to the 19th century world of Jane Austen because the filmmakers don't take the time or trouble to point out those similarities. For example, the fact that Elizabeth Bennet is 26 and unmarried in this film is never shown to be unusual. (Contrast this with the movie `My Big Fat Greek Wedding' where the viewer quickly understands that for the protagonist to be unmarried and 30 is very unusual for her culture.) In addition, the average viewer never gets to appreciate the irony of characters like Lydia, Kitty, and Collins because he or she isn't shown how that behavior is at odds with the teachings AND culture of the LDS Church.

One of the reasons Jane Austen's books have remained popular for 200 years is due to her skill in pointing out the hypocrisy, foolishness and frailties of human beings in HER culture. That same kind of scrutiny would have helped this film appeal to a wider audience. Then Lydia's and Kitty's extravagant preparations for "church", their husband hunting antics, the irony of the "Pink Bible" and Lydia's elopement to Las Vegas would all have been better comprehended as behaviors totally at odds with what is considered "proper" and `right' in Mormon culture. Then you would have had an amusing film that all could have learned from and appreciated.

That doesn't mean that what is presented is without value. Overall, the movie is a delightful, amusing romp that aficionados of Jane Austen and the Mormon culture can appreciate. Elizabeth Bennet has always been a delightful literary creation and Kam Heskin creates a full (and flawed) character, charmingly disorganized and impetuous. It is not hard to understand Darcy's fascination with her. Heskin and Seale have good chemistry and interesting interactions and because we root for them to get together, the relationship works. Seale does a good job in portraying the Darcy that Jane Austen readers have come to know and love (or hate). Basically, Orlando Seale's Darcy is a good guy with an unpleasant personality that is nicely contrasted with Jack Wickham, who is a bad guy with an engaging personality (in both the book and the film). One especially nice touch is a scene where Elizabeth talks with Jack over a game of pool. The final frame of Jack as their conversation ends has him framed against an entirely black background foreshadowing some of the less than virtuous actions that he will engage in later.

There's a whole host of other amusing characters: Collins' arrogant righteousness and his constant invoking of his mission president's advice (President DeBourgh!); Charles Bingley's goofy charm; Mary's social ineptitude; Lydia's single-minded pursuit of a husband and that ridiculous Pink Bible (I don't know if such a book exists but if it did, it would probably be a best seller!).

One of the cleverer aspects of the movie was the presentation of quotes from the book as preludes to the action that followed. This and the penultimate shot of Heskin looking at a portrait of Jane Austen is a nice way of tying the movie back to the book.

Overall, I enjoyed seeing characters I knew well translated into a Mormon-type fairy tale. As I said earlier, my only problem with the movie is that it could have been so much more.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is not just a clever romance. It contains strong criticism against a society that punished women for their intelligence, created an upper class for whom working for a living was disgraceful, and operated through social interactions that could make true, intimate friendship difficult. The novel depicts intense pressure on young women to marry, and marry early-- and shows how such marriages can end in tragedy. This movie, however, is almost completely free of serious criticism of Mormon society. Instead, it is full of silly characters doing silly things, wearing foolish outfits and lobbing objects at each other in case you didn't understand that it was supposed to be a comedy. Apparently the pressure to marry that young Mormons feel is really kind of a hoot.

Issues of class and social position (particularly for women) are central to Jane Austen's novels, and any adaptation for the screen cannot be successful without being sensitive to this, whether the adaptation is period or modern. This film fails to present these themes in any meaningful way, and I doubt being a Morman would allow a viewer to see any deeper. How does a young English publishing magnate end up hanging around with a bunch of milk-toast, brainless kids from Utah? How did these kids even get into college (is BYU a decent school?), especially if this is graduate school? My advice: see Clueless (based on Austen's Emma); it, too, is a just a teenage romp, but it makes a real effort to hold a modern mirror up to Austen's world. Besides, Alicia Silverstone is as vivacious as Emma Woodhouse.

If you're attracted to the P&P story line and are entertained by the idea of the plot working itself out in different cultural contexts, then this is the movie for you. The context here is the LDS or "Mormon" culture of Utah. Like "Clueless," the movie's strength comes from recycling the plot of one of Austen's classic novels. As it is, it's fun, though rough around the edges.

P&P poses some real challenges when you transport it to a modern setting, since a lot of the things that mattered to women in the Regency period just don't matter any more. By placing the story in the LDS context, the producers subjected the women to a culture with a few crucial similarities. I know very little about the LDS culture, but the film suggests that LDS women *want* to get married and the men expect them to be virgins. This gives the story its foundation.

This is clearly a low budget production. It shows in some of the technical aspects and in the acting, but the actors are at least competent. There's lots of gentle humor, but the movie lacks the sharp wit that is Austen's trademark.

Jane Austen must roll in her grave every time this film version of her book is watched. This modern day adaptation fails miserably. The characters are not well defined. Even though Elizabeth is charming, there is no chemistry between her and Mr. Darcy. In addition, I cannot believe that the youngest girl in the group is the age the director is trying to portray her as. She seems much older trying to play a younger part. And every time she is on screen I am reminded how fake this film feels. The acting is generally too silly and unbelievable by the whole cast. They are obviously trying to appeal to a pre-teen demographic and in doing so eliminate every other demographic on the map from enjoying the film. Save your time and watch another version of this awesome book.

The modern version of Pride and Prejudice has some good qualities, and some bad. The good? Most of the roles were filled by people who conveyed the characters rightly, the plot was semi-true to the original, and it was believable. The bad? Most of the movie has a huge Mormon faith base, in a lot of the scenes, you want to just rip Elizabeth's head off, and they changed the name of some characters to make it more "friendly." I can't stand that everyone was drinking water throughout the movie, even those whose faith was not Mormon, and this is just a warning, but a lot of the sets are pink. Lastly, I sort of miss the romanticism of the story.

Why, one wonders - do I come down so hard on this film...because 'Pride & Prejudice' is a very good book and there is already a GOOD TV version of it!: The BBC Pride & Prejudice is a mini-series made in 1995 and very recommendable. It's a series with very good actors - Colin Firth, Jennifer Ehle and Julia Sawalha to mention a few -unlike this piece s**t!!

This movie is supposedly based on the novel... However, it's only resemblance is its consistent quoting of the book as well as the overall story with Eliza and Darcy. The problem is: it doesn't work!

One cannot simply take this book, written over 200 years ago and put it into today's history - things have changed... The young sister eloping - with the focus on marriage at the ripe age of what 18?? - and a man finding it beneath him to marry a 'commoner'.. It's ridiculous and seems unrealistic.

Furthermore, the acting is bad but that could also be due to the poorly written script of the film... All those scenes they took from the BBC adoption - yes you could say that 'it was also in the book' - but I will still say that it looked too much like the BBC version which is set in that period of time where such a behaviour was seen as customary. That is why it is so much better - it worked!

The next Pride and Prejudice - release date: 2005 - was a lot better! It's adapted as a movie, telling the story in its period with the right elements from the book - not comparable with this atrocity of a film!

Let me say that first that I had serious reservations about this film right from the start - I'm a huge Jane Austen fan and have about worn out the tapes of the Pride and Prejudice miniseries, I can't imagine anything topping that treatment.

I was very pleasantly surprised. This movie takes another route than the miniseries. While staying true to the themes of the novel, the movie adds a modern twist to the characters and ideas. And, I might add, it's hilarious - smartly so - and a real treat to watch. My boyfriend, whom I had to drag along, ended up liking the film as much as I did.

First of all, this film has a great look. The art direction really stands out and gives the characters a fresh, hip backdrop to play against. And what a smart idea to put this in a Mormon setting - I have friends who are Mormons and it seems like the whole marriage thing is a pretty big deal in that culture, and the dating scene seems to be a lot more traditional and consistent with "old fashioned courtship." So it felt like a great setting for this version.

The chemistry between the two leads is very believable - subtle while at the same time quite powerful, even from their first meeting at the party.

I would have liked to see more of the Charles Bingley character - Ben Gourley is fun to watch and stole pretty much every scene he was in.

The breakout performance is undoubtedly Kelly Stables who plays Lydia - this girl has a bright future ahead of her. She's a great example of the depth of the development of these characters - Stables plays Lydia big, loud and spunky on the outside, but her portrayal of Lydia in the last part of the film is soft and very vulnerable, adding a whole dimension to the character that makes her much more believable and real.

The writing in this film is quick and witty - not a lot of hit-you-over-the-head type gags that I was dreading. The movie earns its laughs instead of going for the cheap jokes. And there's a whole layer of stuff in there for us Janeites - check out the name on the mailbox or the menu at the restaurant for starters. . . fun references abound.

I'll probably head back to see this movie again this weekend, as I'm sure there's a lot I missed, while I was bracing myself for the terrible movie I was sure this was going to be.

All in all, I am hugely relieved and actually excited to see what these actors do next.

As a resident of Utah who DOESN'T belong to the LDS church, I honestly hadn't wanted to see this, but my kids saw it and said that it was actually pretty good. I am a BIG fan of Jane Austen (with an E!) and I thought the references were rather cute. My husband, who is really clueless when it comes to Austen, was a little lost. We had to keep stopping the DVD and reminding him who all the characters were as it was a bit hard to keep track if you're not familiar with the story. That is probably this movie's biggest flaw; however, it's rather cleverly done for those of us who are Austen fans, even attempting (a bit clumsily) to illustrate the injustice women face (Austen's 19th century theme) when they MUST marry well in order to survive. The performances were uneven; some were rather wooden, but most were adequate. The lead characters (Darcy and Elizabeth) did fairly well. Bingley and Jane were distractingly goofy. I loved the grocery store scene! I didn't quite understand, what with Mormon families typically being as big as they are, why the 5 girls couldn't all be sisters, but that's a minor flaw, I suppose. Overall, this was cute and had some clever writing. I had very low expectations and this exceeded them. A definite possibility if you're looking for a rental the whole family (particularly if you have all girls as I do) to enjoy.

I love romantic comedies. Throw a girl in the path of a boy, have them miscommunicate, and then fall in love, I couldn't ask for anything more in a movie. Unless of course the movie is supposed to be Pride & Prejudice. Which this film is not. The characters take names from the novel, there are cute mentions of place names, and that's about it.

Pride & Prejudice is a beloved book because it has a smart and sassy heroine who through various trials comes to realize she is flawed. She is lucky because the most eligible man around (who happens to be in love with her) is also flawed, and also comes to realize this. In many ways, and despite his great wealth, they are equals, and they evolve in a similar path. Also, through the narrator, society and marriage are stingingly satirized.

In this film, Darcy is a little prissy, but that's about it (there is no real class issue with him). It's Elizabeth who is haughty and at times cruel. She must deal with public humiliation at the hands of Collins, eat her words after her outburst to Darcy, and realize she is a really bad writer. No one else in the story changes. In this modern setting, none of the girls have any career aspirations (except for Elizabeth whose dream as a nine year old, we are told, was to be a writer), pms is blamed for an eating binge / self-pity wallow, and the end-of-the-story, where-are-they-now montage includes plenty of mentions of children.

In the features section the director says this movie is meant to be a fable.

It seems to me, the filmmakers' (misogynistic) moral is: woman, you may think you are happy being independent, but you are really being proud and silly, and you won't be happy until you have found a home and a husband. WWJD, what would Jane think?

A mockery of the novel - the characters in no way resemble the creations of Jane Austen except for name. The stories have been twisted in a pathetic way, nominally they live in UTAH and are MORMONS. For a Regency Era novel, that's just tragic. Furthermore, there is no chemistry between any of the couples and you spent an hour and thirty minutes begging for the film to end. (The first ten are spent asking what this movie has to do with Pride and Prejudice.)

As a stand-alone movie, it lacks interest to draw the audience in, employs cheap Hollywood clichés (such as keeping Wickham lit in shadows during many scenes) and lacks substance of any sort. The characters aren't even consistent to their movie versions and scenes are spliced together in a mish-mash way to move the non-existent plot along.

Final conclusion? Avoid this film at all costs, even if you are a die-hard Austen fan.

Puh-lease! comes to mind after watching this version of the movie. The story would be passable if it did not try to capitalize on Austin's work, which is one of the best novels ever written. Instead the uncreative writing team stole concepts and characters to fulfill their lack of creative talents. I think that if you are attracted to this moving because you are fan of Austin you will be very disappointed. However, if you have no idea who Miss Austin is or what she has done you find this movie barely entertaining.

This was a truly awful film that did not just butcher butcher the basic plot and manage to be more retrograde than the nearly 200-year old society upon which Austen commented. It also even managed to be stickily pious and insult Mormons simultaneously. Last I checked, Mormons couldn't have caffeine, so the blatant product placement for Diet Coke and the repeated eating of chocolate ice cream were especially absurd. Mostly, however, while the lead character was referred to as feminist several times, she appeared in fact pathetically simple--her only apparent effort at independence involved writing a romance novel. I am not an Austen purist, by the way; I was hoping for a fun entertaining update of an Austen novel of the sort offered by clueless. This was an utter waste of time.

Originally billed as '...a Latter Day Comedy', this version of Pride and Prejudice presents Mormon characters in a modern setting. There are the characters we all know and love - Elizabeth Bennet, Darcy, Bingley, Mr Collins. But just not in the setting we're used to.

This film has had bad press amongst Austenites, and didn't really get a UK distributor, so it isn't well known here. But it is an enjoyable modern twist on the classic novel, with the plot points there, but updated. It's also short enough to be entertaining and zippy. It's no Clueless (the modern version of Emma), but it is a good attempt to move Austen to another culture.

I believe however that the version available now isn't the original script and that the LDS references have been toned down somewhat - but that's no detriment, in my view, unless you're aware of them and miss their presence.

i am crazy about modern day takes on classic stories--clueless is one of my favorite movies because it so perfectly retells Emma. so, of course, when i saw this movie was coming on TV...i was eager to give it a try (though skeptical, considering i'd never heard of it)...to be honest, i wish i had that hour and a half back.

it's a ridiculously saccharine, terribly written, horribly acted movie--certainly, filled with clever tricks (like the Austen quotes that bookend all the scenes), but, at its core, a boring, unsexy, uninteresting version of a remarkably sensual novel. Darcy is more dopey than brooding, and Lizzie is cute--but too flat to play such a rich, nuanced character.

i didn't know it was a "Mormon" movie until i just looked it up--but i'm not surprised. that explains the constant references to church and the reason why everyone was interested in marriage--rather than dating.

if you're Mormon and a Jane Austen lover--i imagine you'd enjoy this...but if you're not a Mormon--rent Bridget Jones--it's a better bang for your buck.

Elizabeth (Kam Heskin) is an aspiring writer who lives with four other women, Jane, Lydia, Kitty, and Mary. Sound familiar? The girls attend a party, one day, and Jane is smitten with a man named Charles. Darcy also comes along, a man who talked crossly with Elizabeth when they met at the bookstore. Darcy sits in the car, by himself. Nevertheless, Elizabeth and Darcy will meet again..and again..and again throughout the next few weeks. The other girls have their romantic adventures as well, although Charles disappears, making Jane very sad. Elizabeth also learns that her book may be published! How will the fortunes of five females, under one roof, play out? This updated version of Austen's book is quite charming, in its own right. The girls are attractive and fun, the men are equally fetching, the costumes are great, the script is witty, and the settings are wonderful. No, it may not be the equivalent of the BBC productions with Colin Firth or David Rintoul and it is not as clever as Clueless. Nevertheless, Austen's tale is as good as gold and will remain so forever. Do not miss this adaption if you are an Austen fan, or even if you are not. Those who go gaga over comedic romances will be filled with pride that they chose this film, too.

I have to say that I enjoyed this movie. Yes it was made by the Church of Latter Day Saints... at least you can trust that it is safe for children. :) Anyway, yes, the movie does not follow the Jane Austen novel word for word, but it does include quotes from the book at different points throughout the movie - I watched it with a friend who has never read the book, but when she saw the quotes on the screen, she said aloud "Well.. maybe I will give the novel a try after all." Just a thought to the die-hard Austen fans upset at the discrepancies.

This remake of Pride and Prejudice is very light-hearted and easy to watch. I would recommend that one watches this when they want to watch a movie that will allow them to escape their world for a little over an hour. It reminds you not to judge someone so quickly, and that first impressions are not correct... a helpful lesson for the cynical world that we live in.

Oh, please. If someone is going to use the name of one of the truly great English-language novels ever written as the title of his/her/its movie, it had better be (1) pretty darned good and (2) decently faithful to the intent of the novel. Otherwise, call it something else. In this case, using "Pride and Prejudice" is a gross insult to the intelligence of even modestly intelligent movie-goers and to the creative genius of Jane Austen.

Compare this to an outstanding, perhaps the greatest, visual rendering of the novel: The 1995 Jennifer Ehle/Colin Firth BBC television series made into a seamless 300-minute movie. It is superb in every way, a nearly flawless production with fewer identified errors of various sorts in it than are normally reported in a movie of more typical length. Then there is this sad spectacle. It would not be so offensive had it been named something like "Twits and Tittering" or "Plodding Petulance"--anything but Austen's own title. This is something like making a mediocre-or-worse movie about break-dancing and calling it The Holy Bible.

One cannot say too little about this movie: It is embarrassingly poor. That is quite little enough to say.