I can’t stand the 2005 version. All the girls giggle and squeal like 12 year olds. There’s no decorum at all... the whole family comes across as trashy. There’s nothing in the novel to suggest the poverty and decay the settings suggest. They aren’t desperate to marry because they are poor; they aren’t. They’re simply going to lose it all when the father dies because the estate is entailed. But all this giggling and squealing and running around in the mud and rain business... it’s like they took Jane Austen and tried to turn her into Charlotte Bronte.
“They’re simply going to lose it all when the father dies because the estate is entailed”
That was made perfectly clear. Have no idea how you can think otherwise. I did not read the novel so the issue of being faithful to the written work is not an issue with me. It stands on its own merit. Absolutely exquisite. What you see as “trashy” and “poor” I see as earthy.
And as I said, virtually every frame is a painting. I am more of an appreciator than a critic. The secret to my success.
I went to see the 2005 version with a friend of mine who is a big Austen fan as well as having a degree in English Lit and was at the time teaching English Lit at a private girls school.
She hated it and I mean she really, really hated it and said pretty much that same as you - that the film made the Bennet family out to be some sort of Regency era semi-trailer trash. I did think the fellow who played Mr. Darcy was rather nice to look at, but I was otherwise unimpressed.
After we left the theater she said she needed to go home to re-watch either the 1980 or her favorite, the 1995 BBC version to clear this version out of her head.