Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		4.5

Pride and Prejudice Blu-ray Movie Review

Is this latest release Austen-tatious?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 16, 2014

If you’ve ever been to Europe, you know that any given city—and especially any given smaller town—can often look like something out of a storybook or perhaps more appropriately a history book. But there’s really nothing quite like Lacock, a sylvan little village a couple of hours outside of London, England, where time seems to have literally stood still for centuries. Almost the entire town is owned and managed by Britain’s National Trust, and visiting there can be somewhat akin to entering a time machine and seeing what life was like before such modern conveniences as –shingled roofs (many of Lacock’s structures bear those iconic thatched roofs). My wife and I took our teenage sons to Europe last summer (and lived to tell the tale), and while the highlight of our journey for me was probably our days in Normandy, where we visited many small villages my late father had helped to liberate (as Commander of the U.S. Army’s 9th Division), my wife points to Lacock as one of her personal favorites because—Colin Firth roamed those very streets during the filming of the still incredibly popular 1995 BBC rendition of Jane Austen’s immortal Pride and Prejudice. Lacock, because of its very evocative and “frozen in time” ambience, has of course been repeatedly used for location shoots for everything from Cranford to Harry Potter , but perhaps the village’s most well remembered “appearance” is in Pride and Prejudice. In fact many of the women who were on the tour my family took to Lacock were oohing and aahing as the guide pointed out various places they might recognize from Pride and Prejudice, while most of us menfolk dutifully rolled our eyes and wondered why we couldn’t look like Colin Firth in his prime. Despite manifold iterations of Austen’s timeless tale, for some reason the 1995 version really seemed to reach out and touch vast quantities of viewers and has remained one of the most fondly remembered versions of the story, despite generally well regarded (and in some cases much more lavish) productions like the one starring Keira Knightley.

My hunch is that very few readers are unfamiliar with at least the basic outlines of the plot of Pride and Prejudice. If there are any who want or need a quick recap, I refer you to my colleague Dr. Svet Atanasov’s review of the previous release of this title, which includes a good overview of the basic storyline. What interests me a bit more in terms of this review is why this version has so caught the fancy of international viewers. One of the new supplements included in this so- called “Keepsake Edition” refers to a lot of what was going on in Britain at the time—including the dissolution of the royal marriage between Charles and Diana—but that hardly seems to fully account for the global phenomenon that this Pride and Prejudice became, something that has obviously continued more or less unabated in the close to twenty years (!) since it was first broadcast.

There are at least a couple of reasons I would argue have set this version apart from several others. The productions values—while perhaps not quite as lush as might be expected from a big budget feature film—are uniformly excellent, wonderfully capturing the flavor of Austen’s era. And the casting is of course next to miraculous. Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth have become rather definitive as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. But adding inestimable color to this production is the absolutely fantastic supporting cast, a large and at times diverse crew that includes lovely turns from great character actors like Alison Steadman as Mrs. Bennet and Julia Swahala as Elizabeth’s sister Lydia. (On a somewhat tangential note, alert viewers will note how similar Swahala looks to a young Helena Bonham-Carter in this role. Interestingly, Bonham-Carter’s own somewhat distant cousin, Crispin, was given one of his first major roles in this adaptation, as Mr. Bingley.) But perhaps the two most important elements in this version are its absolutely pitch perfect sense of humor (something that newcomers to Austen’s world may actually be surprised about—Austen was not humorless, as some have averred) and the equally precise and nuanced emotional tone this version sets from virtually the first moment.

In a way, it’s rather odd that a novel like Pride and Prejudice should have any “legs” (to quote show business parlance) at all, especially in our fast paced modern world where women can pretty much call their own shots, or at least come closer to calling them than any of the females in any of Austen’s books were ever able to. Something in Austen seems to speak very deeply especially to females, and perhaps it’s that even though things have markedly improved, a lot of women still feel at least partially powerless to shape their own fates. That aspect, coupled with the eternal pining of everyone—male or female—to follow their heart rather than some sort of proscribed predestined course may be the ultimate allure of this evergreen entertainment.

Pride and Prejudice Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Pride and Prejudice is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and A&E Networks Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The press materials accompanying this release are mum on whether this newest release of the venerable property underwent any new mastering, though a cursory (and completely unscientific) comparison of bitrates between the two versions suggests that this is a new encode, as bitrates are on the whole (though not uniformly) slightly higher on this release. That said, a side by side comparison I did in preparation for this review revealed no overtly obvious differences in appearance between the two versions. As Svet noted in his review of the first release, this was sourced from the original Super 16 negatives, and is a considerable uptick in clarity and detail from previous home video versions. I refer you to Svet's excellent analysis for more details, though I would mention one additional and potentially minimally troublesome aspect, and the reason that I have marked down my video score by a half point: grain structure, while natural looking and certainly not artificially scrubbed in any way, is still noticeably variable throughout the presentation. Look, for example, at the difference in grain structure between the first and the third screenshots accompanying this review for just one example. The restoration featurette ported over from the previous release specifically talks about the difference in grain between the A-rolls and B-rolls, but in the context of how those differences were ameliorated by returning to the negative. That said, there are still these slight but quite noticeable anomalies.

Pride and Prejudice Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with the previous Blu-ray release of Pride and Prejudice, this release offers a perfectly serviceable LPCM 2.0 track which boasts excellent fidelity and which renders both dialogue and the wonderful Carl Davis score cleanly and clearly. Again as with the previous release, no problems of any kind are noticeable on this enjoyable, if somewhat narrow sounding, track.

Pride and Prejudice Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

All of the supplements from the previous Blu-ray edition have been ported over to this release. Additionally, there are several new featurettes included here, indicated below by an asterisk (*).

• The Definitive Pride and Prejudice* (1080p; 21:25) is a good featurette detailing the history of the miniseries and the novel. There's some passing biographical data imparted about Austen, as well as the world in which she grew up and eventually prospered.


• Love or Money? Courtship and Marriage in Pride and Prejudice* (1080p; 10:01) details the philosophical dilemma facing most female heroines in Austen's novels.


• The Music of Pride and Prejudice* (1080p; 9:57) is a nice homage to the wonderful Carl Davis.


• Lifestyles of the Wealthy in Early 19th Century England* (1080p; 8:38) is a rather interesting look at the upper classes in Britain.


• Pride and Prejudice: A Turning Point for Period Drama (1080i; 31:12) has some interesting interviews with adapter Andrew Davis and others. There's some compelling information about what was going on in England in 1995 and why the show was so popular when it was first broadcast.


• Featurette: Technical Restoration (1080p; 5:30) is the previously released piece showing the remastering process for this television film, including fixing A&B roll joints needing to be fixed. This was sourced from the Super 16 negative, and there's a really good look at the difference between that source and prints. The "grain debate" also gets dealt with, and the difference between grain and machine noise is addressed.


• Featurette: Lasting Impressions (1080i; 59:36) was the last "definitive" documentary about the production.


• An Impromptu Walkabout with Adrian Lukis and Lucy Briers (1080i; 9:46) is a 10th Anniversary visit to some of the locations.

Pride and Prejudice Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're a guy and are married or in a relationship, chances are you've already sat through at least one viewing of this particular Pride and Prejudice. My hunch is many of you should prepare to do so again, at least if you want to maintain some semblance of domestic bliss. This new release offers the same excellent video and audio of the first Blu-ray release, while presenting a quartet of enjoyable new featurettes. Highly recommended.