Deborah Moggach’s screenplay and Joe Wright’s direction turn this into a serious and emotionally felt adaptation that goes for realism and romance rather than trying to be a cultural showpiece. It does so without tampering beyond what makes sense in transferring a work from the printed page to the screen, which has different demands. The film is admirably faithful to the meaning and sensibility of Austen’s compelling story.

Knightley is wonderfully touching. Apart from being stunning in the looks department with those alive, penetrating eyes, she embodies the youthfulness of Elizabeth. She is so appealing that one longs for everything to come out right in her quest for romance, and yet she also communicates Elizabeth’s feistiness and need for independence, as well as her intelligence, so important to a full realization of Austen’s portrait.

Macfadyen, who has the memories of other Darcys as competition, is strikingly effective in the role. He is handsome in a special way and, at first reserved as the smitten but haughty man of wealth, Mafadyen builds the performance from this reticence to the point where he can better express himself and enable us to increase our understanding of his complexity. As with Elizabeth, we long for him to make the breakthrough and for them to get together. That’s an accomplishment in relation to a work so well known.

Brenda Blethyn is thoroughly believable as Mrs. Bennet trying to marry off her daughters, and her performance, while depicting the dithery quality of the lady, also makes her sympathetic in the need for what she must do in a society in which woman have to depend on marriage to give them an economically and socially secure future. Bleythn rescues the role from caricature. Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennet gives another fine performance, one that emphasizes the closeness with Elizabeth and the understanding he has of the need for her to find the right person to marry apart from the financial aspect.

Dame Judi Dench couldn’t be better as the arrogant, manipulative Lady Catherine, and her brief scenes leave an indelible impression. The others in the cast contribute effectively toward rounding out this whole recreation of the society as described by Austen—Simon Woods as Mr. Bingley, Tom Hollander as Mr. Collins, Rupert Friend as Wickham, as well as those playing the other Bennet daughters, Rosamund Pike as Jane, Jena Malone as Lydia, Talulah Riley as Mary and Carey Mulligan as Kitty.

The film, sumptuously photographed on location with the use of England’s stately homes, is rich in period ambience enhanced with touches of realism. The entire film has enormous appeal, much of it because the Bennet sisters are portrayed as the young woman they are supposed to be. The film dramatizes the youthful need for finding romantic love in the face of the conventions that make virtually everything hinge on financial station in life and the pressures to settle before it is too late.