For some screenwriters, adapting one of the most beloved novels in the English language may seem like an impossible task. But for Deborah Moggach, the British author behind the screenplay to the 2005 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” updating the life and times of the Bennett family for modern audiences was as simple as “cooking with very, very good ingredients.”
“That was a great pleasure, really,” Moggach said. “There’s hardly anything in the script that [Austen] didn’t actually write.”
To fit the constraints of film, Moggach placed a greater focus on Elizabeth Bennett’s storyline. Her film adaptation follows the novel’s young protagonist, played by Keira Knightley, and her wish to secure a relationship born out of love rather than economic security, which ultimately leads her to Mr. Darcy, played by Matthew MacFadyen, who was relatively unknown at the time.
Moggach said she also wanted to express a sense of realism to the film, departing from the more pristine previous adaptations, like the beloved 1995 BBC miniseries starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth as Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, respectively. When she was hired to pen the screenplay, Moggach herself suggested the now-famous “muddy-hem” version.
“I wanted the [Bennett] girls to be young, I wanted them to have no makeup, I wanted them to wear the same dresses day after day, and I wanted to show the mud,” Moggach said. “Because what we don’t realize is that, even though they’re living in a beautiful Jacobean house and they’ve got a bit of a carriage and everything, they’re actually on their uppers, and they are short of a bob or two.”
Thanks in part to director Joe Wright’s previous work in social realist documentaries, 2005’s “Pride & Prejudice” feels less like a costume drama and more like a chronicle of a family desperate to secure wealthy suitors. Moggach recalls the extra care taken to make the set look more messy on-screen, as well as the unusual techniques used to elicit more natural performances from the actresses playing the other Bennett sisters: Carey Mulligan in her debut film role, Talulah Riley-Milburn and Jena Malone, the sole American in the cast.
“Those girls lived in the house,” Moggach said. “They went to a hotel to sleep, but they lived in the house, and they played sardines in it, and they brushed each other’s hair, and they made themselves at home. And that made a great difference, because it was very familiar to them.”
This familial dynamic helped fill in the blank spaces for Moggach, who found it difficult to write for a large cast sitting in a room “drinking tea all day.” However, because other writers contributed to the script, she admits she wasn’t pleased with every aspect of the finished product. This includes the film’s controversial American ending, which features Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy in their nightclothes at the Pemberley estate. The international version of the film ends on Mr. Bennett, played by Donald Sutherland, approving of his daughter Elizabeth’s engagement.
“Somebody — rather patronizingly, I think — thought that Americans had a sweeter tooth than the British, and they would like a more romantic ending,” Moggach said.
Regardless of Moggach’s preferred ending, filmgoers continue to fall in love with “Pride & Prejudice” 20 years later, a testament to intelligent writing and direction, and to the staying power of the source material. And as the world celebrates Jane Austen’s 250 birthday, a new adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” is in the works at Netflix, starring Emma Corrin as Elizabeth Bennett and written by British author Dolly Alderton.
“I think what happens is that it needs to be reinvented for each new generation, ” Moggach said. “Let’s hope that they don’t mess it about too much, because it is the perfect plot.”
Guest
- Deborah Moggach, English playwright, novelist and screenwriter of “Pride & Prejudice” (2005)
