Pride & Prejudice, 2005

Pride & Prejudice, 2005
Director: Joe Wright
Cast: Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland, Judi Dench


Stage: Home TV selection, Wednesday night after a hard working day


Pride & Prejudice in short: The story is based on Jane Austen's novel about five sisters - Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia Bennet - in Georgian England. Their lives are turned upside down when a wealthy young man (Mr. Bingley) and his best friend (Mr. Darcy) arrive in their neighborhood.


Preps: Well, I have seen this at least twice already, the first time at the movies and I loved it. I love the novel and wanted to see the movie badly. Now I am wasted because of a tiring day and it is a good news this is on TV.


Reality: It is one thing to dream away with the novel, but to see Darcy and Elizabeth for real on screen.. dare I say in the shape of beautiful Keira Knightley. I love to see her in cast because I am dazzled again and again by this woman's beauty. I absolutely adore the way she is spelling words, her accents in various movies. She doesn't let me down in Pride and Prejudice. I believe this is the piece of character that fits her like a glow. A drifted away dreamer, a pigeon among predators, an angel with brains between sheep. I believe the novel is so carefully written and so notorious that the director couldn't drift away from the reality of the book even if he wanted to. I am dearly grateful for all the copycat pages the scriptwriter did, because in this way you are dragged into the same feeling you had when you read the book. Especially if you were as fond of it as I was.
The setting is exquisite. The castles take my breath away. The devastation in souls of young women that only think of marriage and how they will settle somewhere and not be hungry for the rest of their lives.. without affection, definitely in most cases without love, arranged marriages.. they gave me shivers as I watched them. The poorness of the souls Elizabeth is surrounded is very profoundly acted. Judi Dench as the perfect nobless, aunt of Darcy, is brilliant. As well as Donald Sutherland, as her father. Being drifted away from the one you love even though you don't know yet you love him.. excellent energy among the main actors and the main protagonists.
I need to also compliment the wardrobe, because I am stunned by dresses, hats, ribbons.. the fashion selected by top crew flew me right into this time. Also all the selected words. It was as though we were reading poetry. I am still under impression and I feel in love. So should you, when you see this piece. Yearning for love shouldn't be such a pain as she feels. Even though she gets in the end her Hollywood story. It wasn't meant for anyone in that time.


My personal rating: 8,0 (a truly fine romantic drama/historical insight into the selection of given moments to dames way back in history. And love seeking, in the most poetic way. Proposal like you haven't seen in a long run. .. worth seeing and dreaming away).


Pride & Prejudice on IMDB

Hanna, 2011

Hanna, 2011
Director: Joe Wright
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana



Stage: Home @laptop


Hanna in short: Hanna (Ronan) is a teenage girl. Uniquely, she has the strength, the stamina, and the smarts of a soldier; these come from being raised by her father (Bana), an ex-CIA man, in the wilds of Finland. Living a life unlike any other teenager, her upbringing and training have been one and the same, all geared to making her the perfect assassin. The turning point in her adolescence is a sharp one; sent into the world by her father on a mission, Hanna journeys stealthily across Europe while eluding agents dispatched after her by a ruthless intelligence operative with secrets of her own (Ms. Blanchett). As she nears her ultimate target, Hanna faces startling revelations about her existence and unexpected questions about her humanity.


Preps: None in perticular. One again from the movie selection I have, still running in the theatres, and I am curious.


Reality: A dissappointment. The only remarkable thing I see in the movie is the powers (or let us say, skills) the girl posesses. And are of course, trained. Living in a cocoon and being trained by her father, at first you could get the glimpse of the Carey's Truman show. Up to some extent, she is aware of the world as a big danger and doesn't have any real life experience, apart from the frozen and life taking ones. And being trained as a professional, kind of a Charlie Angel in her youth.

After she's released in the real life, the chase begins. Chasing the past, chasing the probable future, you are lead into the world where all the agents in the globe know your whereabouts, I am often reflected with Angelina Jolie in this sense, because usually this is her type of the movies - endless action with some sex drive (in this case the sexual point is missing, obviously because of the youth of the young girl). Through the movie, I have the feeling that I have seen this somewhere before. Like a puzzle of different pieces, put together by this director. So I am not impressed at all, yet alone I am bored to death as the movie reaches its end. I cannot recommend it, because it lacks passion, it lacks true and believable story. The only thing that I would wish someday to be a Xena like this young lady is - to have skills like this because I sense they would be worth struggling for. Not to be used in this deadly sense, of course, but still.


My personal rate: 4,0 (good battle scenes, bad execution in the chase - which is 80% of the movie).


Hanna on IMDB