“My daughters are trained for battle, sir, not the kitchen.” – Mr Bennet
Let me preface this review by saying that I am no stranger to Pride & Prejudice. I’ve read the original novel (my second favorite Jane Austen after Persuasion) as well as the Pride & Prejudice & Zombies mash-up novel. I’ve also seen just about every adaptation ever made of the source material. From the 1995 BBC miniseries starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, to the 2005 film starring Keira Knightly and Matthew Macfadyen. From the musical Bollywood Bride & Prejudice, to the modern and good-natured Mormon Pride & Prejudice, to the ultra-modern Emmy-award-winning webseries The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, to the P&P ‘inspired’ Bridget Jones’ Diary. I can rate Lizzie Bennets from great to lackluster, and Mr Darcys from brooding and intense to girly and a little bland.
So I didn’t go into seeing the film adaptation of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies as any kind of newbie to the material. Not even a little tiny bit.
And I still really enjoyed it.
Like REALLY enjoyed it. Enjoyed it enough that I kind of wish it was already available on Bluray so I could watch it again and again (and again probably, don’t judge me, it’s an enjoyable flick).
The plot of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies basically breaks down like this: It’s the Regency period and the gentry are busy playing cards and dancing at balls and drinking tea and learning the deadly arts (the rich in Japan, the not-so-rich in China) to combat the undead menace that is overrunning England. Lizzie Bennet is one of five sisters who have been trained in the Shaolin style to protect their home and family from the zombie hordes. While their mother is obsessed with getting them married off to rich men that can take care of them, they are more resigned to a life of training, cleaning weapons, flirting with the militia, and hoping they don’t get eaten while out on a walk around their neighborhood. Into this life of less-than-idleness rides rich Mr Bingley and his surly, brooding pal Mr (Colonel when he’s working) Darcy. Bingley quickly sets his sights on Lizzie’s older sister Jane, and, while Lizzie initially finds Darcy to be somewhat admirable, that admiration is moved early-on to disgust at his calling her only tolerable and “not handsome enough to tempt” into dancing. His opinion changes the first time he sees her in action fighting expertly against zombies, but by then the damage is done and she’s pretty much put him at the top of the list of men she could “never be prevailed upon to marry.” After that comes much flirting, arguing, dancing, fighting, learning about each other’s characters, misunderstanding each other’s characters, letter writing, zombie killing, and eventually falling in love and kind of getting a happily ever after (this story is hundreds of years old, I think we are beyond spoilers at this point).
So if you aren’t a P&P aficionado like moi, will you still enjoy P&P&Zombies? My opinion is sure, it’s fun for a lot of reasons and not just because it takes a classic Regency romance and turns it into a gory action zombie-fest. In fact, here are ten reasons to love Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (like what I did there?)!
The opening exposition scene is well done.
There’s kind of a lot of backstory that comes up about how and when the zombie uprising happened in England. Instead of trying to fit it into clunky expository dialogue throughout the movie, most of it is explained in a clever montage during the opening credits.
The zombies are pretty creepy.
Some are done with makeup, others with CG, but all of the zombies in P&P&Z are made as realistically as possible. They’re more than just decomposing set dressing. There is a mythology and a set of rules that goes with them and they follow it pretty well.
Mr Darcy’s leather coat.
Mr Darcy is always a take-charge, broody, imposing kind of handsome love interest. But this version also gets to be a snappy, leather-wearing, bad boy, kind of handsome love interest. It works for him.
Lydia is not nearly as annoying as usual.
Out of the five Bennet sisters, Lydia has always been the most annoying to read about/watch. She’s young and insipid and naïve and gets away with stupid stuff just because Jane Austen wasn’t cruel enough to give her the fate she kind of totally definitely deserved. But in this version, she’s way less of an irritating child and she really seems to learn the important lessons she needs to make it through life as a better person.
Matt Smith as Mr (Parson!) Collins.
Matt Smith was one of my favorite Doctors on Doctor Who, and, after seeing him in this film, he’s my favorite Mr Collins. Some actors play the character as a boring jerk. Others play him as flighty but kind of sweet. Matt Smith plays him as an energetic, simpering, egotistical, delightfully funny ass who sparkles on screen even when he’s being rejected by his choices in wives or saying stupid stuff in a room full of important people.
Lena Headey as Lady Catherine.
Normally Lady Catherine is just awful. She’s proud and arrogant and rude and busy telling everyone else how to live their lives and not really living her own. In the book of P&P&Z she’s still pretty awful, with the addition of controlling an army of ninjas that she is constantly sending after Lizzie (before and after Lizzie’s engagement to Mr Darcy). In this film adaptation she’s still pretty pretentious and self-aggrandizing BUT she’s willing to acknowledge Lizzie’s merits as a woman and a warrior. She also helps out when zombies overrun the county and lets people she sees as beneath her take refuge in her house.
Lizzie’s initial rejection of Mr Darcy.
Mr Darcy’s initial proposal to Lizzie Bennet is pretty bad. He insults her, her family, and himself for having feelings for her. Then he’s surprised and angered when she turns him down. It is never an emotionally comfortable scene to witness between them (he’s really in love but still an ass and she can’t stand him for multiple reasons). This version of the rejection takes it up a notch or five when Lizzie decides to respond to Mr Darcy’s wretched proposal with some straight-up physical violence. She throws books, smashes furniture, attacks him with weapons, and destroys some of his clothing. It’s violent but satisfying none-the-less.
The storyline moves along fairly quickly.
Time passes pretty slowly in the original P&P. There’s lots of it devoted to sitting and talking and sewing and playing instruments and waiting for something interesting to happen. And while that may be a realistic representation of what ladies experienced during the time period, it doesn’t always make for riveting viewing. P&P&Z disregards a lot of that time, squashing events together or dropping them altogether, to keep the pace of the story moving at quickly.
Wickham gets the comeuppance he so richly deserves.
Wickham sucks. He’s charming and sleazy and his interest in teenage girls is kind of gross and he gets away with stuff over and over again and I’ve wanted to punch him in the face for years. But because Jane Austen came from a time when people didn’t just punch each other in the face, there have been few instances in the adaptations where I got to see it (though the Morman modern version and Bride & Prejudice have pretty good comeuppance scenes for him). P&P&Z has the best one of all.
It’s basically got the same love story at its heart.
Even with armies of the undead and a heroine trained for battle and a second half of the story that veers wildly from both the original source material and the P&P&Z book, what this movie comes down to at its core is the love story between Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. The same love story that fans have enjoyed for hundreds of years and through dozens of print and screen adaptations. In the end all the pride and prejudice and miscommunication and punching in the face is put aside for Lizzie and Darcy to have their happily (almost) ever after.
Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (Rated PG-13)
Released 2/5/2016
Starring: Lily James (Elizabeth Bennet), Sam Riley (Mr Darcy), Bella Heathcote (Jane Bennet), Douglas Booth (Mr Bingley), Charles Dance (Mr Bennet), Lena Headey (Lady Catherine de Bourgh), Matt Smith (Mr Collins), Jack Huston (George Wickham)
Directed by: Burr Steers
Based on the Books: Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
