Thursday, May 17, 2012

Lost In Austen: Annihilating Artwork



About a year and a half ago I discovered the movie Lost In Austen. In theory it sounded like the a movie I would love; getting pulled into your favorite novel and interacting with the characters that you love seems like such a fun idea.  I excitedly sat down one afternoon to devour what I was sure would be a few hours of watching a new heroin help Darcy and Elizabeth along.  I was so, very wrong.  It seems the creators of Lost In Austen set out to completely undermine every character in Pride and Prejudice.

The movie starts out all right the main character Amanda Price goes on and on about how much she loves Pride and Prejudice.  She seems to do little but work, put up with a dull boyfriend, and read Pride and Prejudice over and over again.  There’s nothing wrong with reading a superb novel multiple times but to have it become your life?  No wonder Jemima Rooper’s Amanda makes for a rather obnoxious leading lady.  By the time I was 15 minutes into this film I was shocked by the vulgar and tasteless humor present in it.  Austen certainly had her fair share of suggestive humor within her novels but part of what makes it so funny is that it is not spelled out.  A comment about “girl on girl action” in Austen is like nails on a chalkboard. 

Austen’s works are satirical looks at the different kinds of people she observed.  She exaggerated attributes to create rather comedic and thought provoking situations.  In Lost In Austen those characters are exaggerated even more making them more ridiculous than ever.  Mrs. Bennet’s wailing fills the whole home and Darcy does little but glare.  Who would not despise him?  Amanda herself seems to be the creator’s idea of an exaggerated modern woman.  It is as though they wish to show the differences that have developed over a couple hundred years by making Amanda stick out as much as possible.  She chews with her mouth open, says her clothes are for otter hunting, gets drunk at the first ball, and seems to be unable to stop talking about the plot line of the book she has found herself in.  If that is what people truly think the average woman today is like then I think society is doomed.

All the characters seem to have had a change in personality in this mixed up version.  Kitty is the first that I noticed.  She is not as silly as she is in the books.  Kitty seems friendly and fun and is oddly with Marry more than Lydia throughout the movie.  Bingley is besotted with Amanda at first not Jane.  Which is shocking since she is drunk the second time he sees her.  Darcy seems to be flirting with Amanda before being his typical rude self at the assembly ball.  Caroline Bingley flirts with Amanda later on as well.  As a viewer who is finding Amanda rather irritating this is hard to believe. The changes keep coming, as Georgiana Darcy is the attempted seducer rather than Wickham.  Additionally, Mr. Bennet is an even more complacent father than he is in the books; it takes Amanda’s anger for him to go look for the missing Lydia.  The one of the most shocking changes is Jane ending up married to the most disturbing Collins I have ever seen before a convenient annulment is arranged by Lady Catherine.  Lady Catherine doing something to harm Collins?  This just does not seem to fit.  

Perhaps the most irritating character change is in the main character herself.  Elizabeth has abandoned her family, which is so strikingly against the character of Elizabeth Bennet that I find in infuriating.  Elizabeth values her family greatly; she would not just leave them for an adventure.  Elizabeth briefly returns to her family but it takes the near death of her father for Amanda to convince her.  By the end of the novel she chooses to stay in the future and never see her family again.  While Elizabeth returns to the future, Amanda heads for Pemberly where she will end up with Darcy.  Considering Amanda herself has been going on and on about Elizabeth and Darcy being the greatest love story of all time the ending misses the mark. Amanda completely replaces Elizabeth in both Darcy and Jane’s lives.  The writers should have chosen not to pursue a relationship between Amanda and Darcy and aloud Elizabeth to be herself; Lost In Austen would have been more appealing.

In conclusion, Lost In Austen loses all the power of the original by replacing one female lead with another.  Amanda Price is no Elizabeth Bennet and therefore the story unfolding around her is lacking greatly.  Nearly every beloved or detested character in Austen’s novel is twisted into something unrecognizable.  Georgiana and Bingley become perverse, Wickham becomes heroic, and Elizabeth becomes self-serving.  The created character of Amanda is not nearly as engaging or endearing as the original Elizabeth, which cuts the heart right out of the story.  Darcy and Elizabeth become nothing without each other and the rest of the story fails with them.  After a very trying second viewing of this movie, in order to write this critique, all I can really say is that in this case it is truly best to stick with the original.    

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