Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 2005

The Contenders:

Judi Dench: Mrs. Henderson Presents
Charlize Theron: North Country
Keira Knightley: Pride & Prejudice
Felicity Huffman: Transamerica
Reese Witherspoon: Walk the Line (winner)

Austen City Limits

Film: Pride & Prejudice
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

I genuinely like to give every movie I watch a chance. The best way to be surprised by something is not to go in with preconceived notions of the film in question even if that’s hard sometimes. In the case of Sense and Sensibility, I went in with suspicions and came out a believer. So when Pride & Prejudice, another Jane Austen romantic soap opera showed up in the mail, I was guardedly optimistic. It’s evident that I’m not the target demographic for a costume romance set in the decade or so before 1800, but I’ve been surprised plenty of times before. I had reservations, but I had hopes, too.

And you know what? The hopes paid off. Pride & Prejudice is a pretty good film. Oh, I didn’t rush out and find a copy of any of Jane Austen’s novels to start reading (although I did literally find a copy of the book in a restaurant a couple of hours after finishing the movie—true story), but I think I liked this as well as could be expected for someone who favors horror and science fiction over other genres. I still like Sense and Sensibility more. Part of that is the story itself and part of that is Ang Lee’s superior direction. But I was pleasantly surprised by this all the way through.