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Showing posts with the label Mr. Darcy

Darcy, Don Draper and the Great Struggles

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I don't feel the popular appeal of Pride and Prejudice as a love story.    I totally understand the reaction to Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen on-screen as Mr. Darcy (boy, do I get that), but that's unrelated to the story for me.   Yes, I love the romantic story within the larger story, but it always annoys me to levels quite abnormal when Pride and Prejudice is seen simply as a love story.   It's so much more complicated than that.  My biggest criticism of the feature-length film from 2005, starring Matthew Macfadyen and Keira Knightley is that it distilled the whole novel into just a love story.   The first time I watched the movie was under miserable circumstances, but after viewing it under more pleasant ones, I can now find things to compliment.  The great success of the 1995 BBC television adaptation of the novel, besides showcasing Colin Firth, was that it included some key elements of the novel.    In the novel, we see Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy grow a