(I started writing when I saw P&P during it’s theatrical re-release with the intention of publishing it in December but… blogging is a muscle that has atrophied a lot for me, I guess. Here’s to getting more reps in this year~)

Today (December 16) marks Jane Austen’s 250th birthday and this year (2025) marks the 20th anniversary of the popular film adaptation of one of her most beloved works, Pride and Prejudice. While I don’t consider myself an Austen buff or even a huge fan of P&P, the book and the movie both played a big role in my life. The book was the first “classic” book I read, after years of reading primarily children’s literature. Among a set of 4 “classics”, it was the first I was able to read and I loved the witty and elegant prose. This book helped give me the confidence to read more classic literature and step away from my comfort zone of children’s, and later young adult, books.

But the 2005 movie, directed by Joe Wright, changed my life a little more than most books and movies do, entirely by chance.

As many often did in the 2000s, I watched Pride & Prejudice via a bootleg CD among a stack of bootleg movies my cousin gave me to watch over the summer. Because the movie was of questionable background, there were audio issues, which meant I was missing out on a lot of the sharp dialogue that makes this movie so well loved.

So, I turned on the subtitles and started the movie from the beginning when I noticed… the subtitles didn’t match the audio. At all. There were several lines of subtitles going during the wordless opening scene, explaining that the blackbird is Elizabeth Bennet’s bird, a detail I never would have ever known but that added a layer of enjoyment to this movie I never would have ever had before. I was reading the director’s commentary subtitles, because this bootleg video had the subtitle files mixed up somewhere, and learning about the many very specific choices made by Joe Wright and his team on this movie truly opened my eyes to filmmaking as a craft. Where I previously watched movies simply for narrative entertainment value, after over 2 hours of rapt watching, this single film completely changed how I approached movies and the entire film industry for the rest of my life. In fact, to this day, I sometimes fantasize about escaping into the film industry and becoming part of the movie magic. (Convince me I should leave a life of stability behind to chase my childhood dream of acting…)

Some fun trivia I learned and still remember from that first viewing with the director’s commentary subtitles:

• Rosamund Pike (Jane) and Simon Woods (Bingley) were a couple prior to being cast on this film, so Joe Wright remarked that the proposal scene must have been very difficult to do with your ex
  • I later learned that Joe Wright ended up dating Rosamund Pike after this movie so…
• I can’t find this in the transcripts but I distinctly remember Wright describing how because Dario Marianelli was “one of the top 4 pianists in the world” that must mean he was #4
• He really admires the actors, I started to really pay attention to acting as a craft thanks to Wright’s praise of subtle choices that Keira Knightly (Lizzie), Judi Dench (Lady Catherine), and Brenda Blethyn (Mrs. Bennett made on screen
• The blackbird is Elizabeth Bennet’s bird, you’ll hear its song at various key moments for Lizzie’s character
• While the book has Lizzie looking at paintings at Pemberly, they chose to do sculptures to evoke sensuality
• There were some fun camera choices in this movie to help the viewer see through Lizzie’s eyes, like when she has her eyes closed in the carriage and you “see” the sun as trees occasionally cast a shadow on your face, and when she’s spinning on the swing and watches the days pass outside
• The ever-present struggle of trying to capture specific angles of sunlight! Sunrise shots were high-stress because you have one shot to get it right that day otherwise you have to try again and hope it’s not cloudy. They also got the fortuity of birds flying across the lake for one of the opening shots, there is a lot of luck involved with cinematography but of course you need the skill and preparation to best take advantage of good luck when you get it

The movie was not as big in my circles when it was released, maybe because at the time I was still younger than the target demographic. (If people were watching the BBC adaptation in 2006, they weren’t discussing it with me anyway.) So imagine my delight and surprise to see some of the more memorable scenes from this movie that subtly changed my life have a second life as some of my favorite memes about a decade later.

And yes, of course I did download the sheet music for Marianelli’s score to learn to play on piano. Catch me playing “Dawn” and “Stars and Butterflies” on a piano near you~

Anyway, I’m so happy I got to see this movie in theaters for the first time and that so many people enjoy this movie that I had previously considered a very niche interest of mine!

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Do you recommend the BBC P&P? I have never seen anything from it, truly. The closest I’ve come is… Bridget Jones’ Diary? Since Colin Firth places Darcy in that 😂

What are your favorite classic book adaptations? I’ll be honest, I am not interested in another P&P as I’ve heard is happening, and I never got around to reading Wuthering Heights but I’m not a fan of some of the comments I’ve heard from the director about it so far. I do actually think Bridget Jones is a really fun and fairly faithful adaptation of this story!