In the two centuries since Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” was first published, it has made its way onto most Top 100 lists of must-read books, and has become part of the curriculum in high schools around the world. Most teens who are forced to read it can appreciate its sweeping story and great characters and easy-to-get writing style. It’s probably not till they revisit it as adults that readers realize how funny it is, how Austen went out of her way to make many of her vain and lovelorn and social ladder-climbing heroes and heroines and villains come across as fools with all of their prides and prejudices.
At the crux of the story is the Bennet family and its five daughters, all of whom their mom wants to marry off. The feistiest of them is Lizzy, the one to whom most would-be suitors are attracted. But amidst all of this, the French Revolution is happening, and the militia is everywhere, so among the wealthy civilian bachelors are officers involved in war.
All of that has been portrayed in the numerous film versions (IMDB lists 15, including the very loosely based one, “Bridget Jones’s Diary). And though the humor rarely steps upfront in the lion’s share of these films, the newest take, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” based on the witty, irreverent, yet loyal-to-its-source 2009 book by Seth Grahame-Smith (and, according to the cover, Jane Austen), is a hoot!
But it isn’t a comedy, nor does it actually spoof Austen. Instead, it presents its late 18th century British story with a straight face, “Downton Abbey”-like, but instead of a war swirling around the characters and events, there are armies of marauding zombies.
The five unmarried Bennet sisters – Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia – are a tight group; they still laugh and play together. But the seriousness of the times has led to them becoming beautiful young warriors, quite adept at using their fists and feet, as well as knives, swords, and guns. Any zombies who approach their home, as they approached and wreaked havoc upon a nearby estate a couple of years earlier, will no doubt have their heads either blown or sliced off, or crushed, all of which are preferred methods of killing them.
If there are still members of the public who haven’t read the book or seen a version of the film, they will have heard of the ill-mannered but well meaning Mr. Darcy, who, almost against his will, falls for Lizzy, even though she wants nothing to do with him. Those two main characters, played here by husky-voiced Sam Riley (Ian Curtis in “Control,” Jack Kerouac in “On the Road”) and winsome Lily James (the lead in “Cinderella,” Lady Rose MacClare in “Downton Abbey”), are the film’s centerpieces. But nothing can be taken away from the characters and performances around them. Bella Heathcote is eldest Bennet sister Jane, Douglas Booth is pretty boy-ish Mr. Bingley, Jack Huston is dashing and perhaps dastardly Mr. Wickham, and former Dr. Who Matt Smith gets most of the film’s laughs as nerdy, scene-stealing Mr. Collins.
There’s a great deal of zombie violence here, and their attacks on living humans in order to eat their brains come close to being graphic (though they fall short of all-out bloody grossness), and the sight of the quintet of women dispatching them are both thrilling and fun. But the best part of the film is how close it actually sticks to the Austen book. The “word battles” between Lizzy and Darcy have been replaced by nicely choreographed fisticuffs, with and without weapons, with both participants really enjoying the fight, and obviously digging each other.
This is a strange mix of horror film, romance, and historical piece. It’s at the same time a sprawling, rip-snorting, and funny adventure story. It’s gorgeously photographed, wonderfully acted and directed, and though based on something so familiar to so many, it stands out as a total original.
Ed Symkus covers movies for More Content Now.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: A bloody good take on Jane Austen in 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies'