To truly hate a movie, you have to care about the subject, and I really care about Jane Austen. Despite pretty pictures and pretty people, this attempt to read Austen’s fiction back into her life is pretty bad. Notwithstanding attractive costumes and settings, the film has no feel for period at all. To anyone with the least sense of Regency England, the dialogue and behavior of the characters is repeatedly eye-rolling, painfully incredible. I was quite taken with Anne Hathaway as the “smart fat girl” of The Devil Wears Prada, but oh my, she is more disablingly anachronistic than Keira Knightley in the Pride and Prejudice to which this film transparently tries to be a sequel. James McAvoy has something as a movie star, but nothing to make him a plausible Darcy figure. There is no glimmer of insight into the trials and contradictions of Austen’s life or her creative psychology, the irony into which she poured those contradictions. Instead of the least appreciation for her art, we get latter-day rom-com conventions. I sat though it, but don’t know when I’ve squirmed and sighed so much in the course of a movie. (2007, dvd, n.) *3+* (MC-55.)
On the other hand, I was appropriately on the edge of my seat for Speed (1994, dvd, n.), which was equally nonsensical but true to its own kinetic premise, summed up in the one-word title. I’m not a big fan of the fun of blowing things up on camera, but Jan de Bont’s film moves fast enough to achieve release velocity, soaring into suspension of disbelief as well as gravity. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock do what movie stars are supposed to do, offer a pleasing fantasy of identification. This is the sort of Hollywood contraption that I would usually avoid, but I was happy enough to catch up with it as a diversion long after its release.
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