ONE FOR THE GIRLS: a review

Austen for dummies? No. Austen for the impatient.
The new 90 minute beautifully cinematic adaptation of Pride and Predudice is a chick flick for anyone who liked Bridget Jones. And what's wrong with that?
The fast pace of the action serves romantic intensity (an intensity increased by a couple of rather emotional declarations of love by Matthew MacFadyen's Mr. Darcy). However, the plot's velocity strips away the tone of female m/c boredom from Austen's world of needlecraft and pianofortes (a tone inevitably far more pervading in the 5 hour BBC adaptation), but with it is also lost the sense of desperation for diversion and eventual rescue from the mundane life of maidenhood.
Here the emphasis is placed, quite reasonably, on the need for fnancial rescue - The social difference between the Bennetts and the Darcys so marked it sometimes feels like a Cinderella story. But no-one ever wrote so well of the economic need to marry or of the gulf between country and city life better than Jane Austen and this is an adaptation rooted in these themes.
The biggest victim of extreme editing is the character of Mr.Wickham, who's minimal appearance allows Keira Knightley's Lizzy to make it to the finish line with her halo pretty-much intact, creating a less flawed, less modern, less lovable heroine.
Mind you, it's easy to be high-brow about such things: Jude and I had raised eye-brows at some new, clonky, 20th century-sounding dialogue in the final act, but it's worth remembering that Jane Austen wrote witty romantic fluff with some social commentary thrown in (Helen Fielding knew exactly what she was imitating when she wrote her updated version), and this is the film to match...
It is filled with lovely performances, of far more subtlety than the charactured BBC portayals, from the likes of Brenda Blethyn, Tom Holland, Judi Dench...and...dare I say it... a thoroughly entertaining and intelligent turn from young Miss Knightley. And all ye who cry "NO!" remember: We only dislike her because she's pretty.
You might well feel a little short-changed by the abrupt ending, but this will put a smile on your face for an hour and a half and change the way you feel about Matthew MacFadyen forever.