Thanks for this excellent addition to my limited discussion of the new P&P movie. People do love it, and it hasn't done bad critically I think, but I'm sure you're absolutely right in saying that the longer Colin Firth rendition is far better -- and I trust your comment on the Olivier/Greer Garson 1940 version, which I only dimly remember. Thanks also for putting in a good word for Eng. Lit., and especially for the wit of Austen, and how her characters are judged by their ability to express themselves, and to think well. I don't know if we'll ever really get that in a film. I went through reject mode myself at first, rejecting Mansfield Park (the book) with a glib show-off putdown. (My teacher wrote on top of my paper: "Why don't you grow up and develop some literary taste. A+.") I was an English major and by the second required Jane Austen reading I had come full circle and was a big fan. Two of the greatest English novelists were women: Jane Austen and George Eliot. Filmmakers always want to make snappy renditions of the literary greats. And once in a while they make something that is original and really sings. But mostly they give us watered-down travelogues. A tour of the Jane Austen country. The real pleasure of the writing which you describe just ain't there.

Critics -- and viewers too maybe -- are off base in rating this glitzy, slapdash Pride and Prejudice on a level with James Mangold's current Johnny Cash bio Walk the Line. The Cash film is more authentic and packs a greater emotional wallop.