I was kind of excited when I saw that there was a version of Pride and Prejudice with Olivier as Mr. Darcy coming up on TCM. I read the book for the first time a few months ago and had just seen the version from 2005 a few weeks before. I really enjoyed Keira Knightly’s performance in that movie but I didn’t quite connect with the actor playing Mr. Darcy, so I was curious to see how a different version with a really wonderful actor as Darcy would work.

Unfortunately, I just didn’t like this version of the story. They changed the setting a bit and chose to put everyone in 1830s clothes [big full skirts and stiff fabrics] instead of 1815 clothes [wispy, empire waisted nightgowns]. I feel like they made the same choice with everything else they did—they made the whole thing stiff and awkward. Most of the actors never quite inhabit the period language and just sound silly. The script has a lot of additions and whole sequences of scenes are cut out. We never see Pemberley, the Darcy family estate, and the storylines with Mr. Wickham are compressed. I found myself cringing and fast forwarding through the sections with Mrs. Bennett and her girls. I often watch the movie version of a novel or play to see how actual people fill out the characters, but I didn’t feel like this version added anything to that… If I had only seen this movie, I never would have read the book.