So what makes Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice (2005) click for me, and Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (1999) disappoint? Considering this question means entering into the contentious debate about what a movie adaptation should aim to do. A movie adaptation will never be a 1:1 copy of a novel. Eugenides’ intricacies in perspective and tragedy make for a generational novel, and while Coppola’s adaptation is a good movie, it pales in comparison. Now we turn to Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice, an adaptation I do like.
