Anthony Lane on Pride & Prejudice (2005)

I have been rewarded for my microfilming efforts (see post below). The review I so effortfully extracted is bitchy and hilarious.

In Anthony Lane's review of the Keira Knightley Pride & Prejudice film adaptation for The New Yorker (14 Nov. 2005, pg. 101-102), he asks,

"What would Mr. Bennet make of the film? He would be left wondering, I suspect, why God gave him only two eyebrows to raise."

And of Lady Catherine's surprise visit to Longbourn:

"And whence this knocking at the door after dark, which brings the night-shirted Bennets downstairs with quivering candles? It is Lady Catherine, come to bawl and bark at Lizzie in a surprising reenactment of the drill-sergeant routine from Full Metal Jacket."

Though I do think Lane hits a little low in comparing Keira Knightley to another movie icon:

"Like the queen in Aliens, she extends her famous underbite and gets down to business. Widening her eyes to maximum chocolaty hue, she stares into his..."

Lane concludes by noting that

"Any resemblance to scenes and characters created by Miss Austen is, of course, entirely coincidental."