very simple

I’ve mentioned before that I’m an utter fan of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and it’s theatrical adaptations. Well, today I woke up with nothing to do, and that weird modern day version was on TV, so I watched it. The story translation to modern day wasn’t too bad, and I think setting it in the mormon community could have actually helped the story, since it makes more sense that these young people would be more conservative about sex, etc. than the general population, but the acting was terrible. Frankly, with a better (more believable) cast and characterizations, it could have worked. And I couldn’t figure out whether it was trying to be earnest or camp. It’s like different actors were given different scripts, with one told to be a ham, one told to play it seriously, and all the girls told to act like they were Mary Cherry in Popular.

So then, to redeem my faith in the storyline, I took myself this afternoon to see Bride and Prejudice – the Bollywood-ized version of the story. It still doesn’t live up to the book or the A&E adaptation, but it was pretty enjoyable, and I certainly felt like the characters were attracted to each other. And heck, I’d pay $11 to see Naveen Andrews read out of the phone book for two hours, so that was nice (it was also interesting to see him play a part with his actual British accent rather than an Indian (English Patient) or "Iraqi" (Lost).

I actually thought about rounding out my day by watching the definitive A&E version again (since, of course, I own it on DVD), but then I realized that it might be a little overkill. Plus, Deadwood premieres tonight. can’t miss that.

Tags: movies