Pride & Prejudice: 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Pride & Prejudice: Twentieth Anniversary Collector's Edition



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
While I’ve always been a period piece lover with a rabid addiction to reading while I was younger, Jane Austen was never my forte. I loved classic literature, but as a young boy (and young man) I would rather read The Counte of Monte Cristo, Les Miserables or Lorna Doone. Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte were “for chicks” and this dude was much more enamored with listening to the Highwayman ride to his death for a woman’s love rather than here Jane Austen wax eloquent about Lizzy falling in love with Mr. Darcy. That being said, I ended up marrying a woman who is a fanatic for Austen, and has seen every variation on Pride & Prejudice at least 30 times (and that’s on the low end for the Colin Firth version), which resulted in myself watching the films over her shoulders. Needless to say I guiltily garnered a mild affinity for the films (or miniseries) made even worse by a celebrity crush on Keira Knightley. So when I saw that Universal sent me a 4K copy of the giant collector’s edition for the 20th anniversary my wife was greatly pleased, while I hid my glee behind a “very” manly watch of Scarface, while waiting for her to go to bed so I could watch the film without that sly smile she gets on her face when I’m enjoying something from “her world”.

There really needs to be no introduction for Jane Austen’s famous novel. The story is as old as time, of an upper middle class family known as the Bennets, who have 5 daughters all needing to be married off or their entire estate will go to the man who marries their eldest daughter (it’s known as an Entailment back then, and only diverted by there being a male heir). So their match making mother (Brenda Blethyn) does every thing she can to get her daughters married off to wealthy young men who can ensure their futures. And while a few suitors come knocking, there is none more unmarriable than yougn Lizzie Bennet (Kiera Knightley) who refuses to marry just for money, but rather for love. Unlike her mother and her other sisters, Lizzie is a precocious and strong willed young woman, less interested in arrogant men with money, but rather being her own person. When the older Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen) comes to visit with her sister Jane’s (Rosamund Pike) suitor Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods) she’s sort of smitten. Only to have her opinions of him dashed to shreds when she overhears Mr. Darcy blithely shrugging off her looks.

Aaaand with that turning point, a rivalry between the two begins. Mr. Darcy is an uptight and elite rich man with an inherited fortune, and Lizzie wants nothing to do with him. Especially when she finds out that Mr. Darcy is influential in Mr. Bingley cutting it off with her sister Jane. Only thing is, Mr. Darcy has been slowly falling in love with Lizzie, which lead to one of the most influential romances of all time, with both characters being forced to learn and adapt to the other person in a way that actually makes them suitable for each other by the end of the film.

One of the best ways to know that a romantic film is great is by how much you fall in love with the main characters. Instead of just watching a film, you’re watching two people fall in love with each other. Changing, adapting, roiling in pain, and ecstatic at their ecstasies. And while I have always been one of those guys who hated Jane Austen, I really enjoyed this rendition of Pride & Prejudice. While my wife adamantly claims that the Colin Firth Miniseries is infinitely better, I’m team Knightley and Macfadyen (though I’m slightly biased due to Knightley’s inclusion as I mentioned in the first paragraph). The two are delightful on screen, with wonderful chemistry and a wonderful cast of supporting actors.

Keira and Matthew play off each other incredibly well, with Matthew pulling off the snobbish (yet kind in a weird sort of way) Mr. Darcy, and Keira Knightley excelling at playing Lizzie Bennet. Her ability to play such a great role at 19 and 20 years old (she aged up to 20 halfway through the filming process) is exemplary, and probably what got her nominated for the Oscars, but I find it’s that disarming smile that she has that absolutely sells that final scene where she admits to herself and her father that she’s in love. I can’t really describe it, but when she smiles you can instantly see just how giddy, delighted, and genuinely in love that she in in that moment. A skill she used quite well a couple years back in Pirates of the Caribbean. But, while the two leads are of course the main course, the supporting actors really flesh the film out and add a very textured array of characters that just stand out. Kelly Reilly (most notable for playing Beth on Yellowstone) is spot on the as jackass sister to Mr. Bingley, Donald Sutherland absolutely sells it as the long suffering Mr. Bennet who has to be single person with testosterone in a family of all women. But it has to be Tom Hollander as Mr. Collins that really took me by surprise. If you’re not a fan of the books/movies, then you might not realize that Mr. Collins is supposed to be an awkward and bumbling sort of fool who wants to marry one of the Bennet daughters. He’s supposed to be cringe worthy and awkward, so when when I found myself DESPERATELY wanting to fast forward through the parts with him as Mr. Collins I realize that he was doing something right. You LOATHE to see him on screen simply because he simpers, mewls, and generally makes a fool of himself midst an entire house who pities and kind of reviles him. Which is the polar opposite of who Tom Hollander generally plays, giving him the nod for probably the single best performance in the film simply because you want him to get run over with a buggy so VERY badly so that we don’t have to watch anymore.

Many people were worried that the 2005 adaptation would be merely another remake of much great films (and a miniseries), especially when everyone was still living the high of Colin Firth being one of the hottest men alive a few years earlier in his rendition of Mr. Darcy. And while it is definitely more trimmed down and concise than the BBC miniseries, the 2005 Adaptation does a good job at creating a unique experience watching something that has been adapted countless times. The leads are downright exquisite in their dueling roles, and the support cast makes for a multi colored cast of fantastic character actors (and some new comers that would move on to be much bigger later on).




Rating:

Rated PG for some mild thematic elements




4K Video: Video:

Universal’s press release mentions that this is a 4K restoration, but from what I can tell with my research the new master was a 2K to 4K upscale, and not a native 4K UHD remaster. But that aside, the film looks magnificent. Shot entirely on film, the movie looks lovely textured and vibrantly colored. Blasting the greens of the Darcy Estate’s surrounding land, warm browns and pale blues/whites/pinks of the costuming. There is that same slightly gauzy looking that darker shots always had in the Blu-ray, and I believe it mainly to be how the film was shot rather than an encoding issue. Fine details look good, with moderate upticks in facial nuances and clothing intricacies. Blacks show some great dynamic range, with good shadow detail and no signs of major crush. The grading of the film makes the blacks look a little gray at times, but never enough to start robbing the picture of any major detail. The HDR/Dolbv Vision is a nice enhancement that subtly adds depth to the colors rather than making them super over the top rich and vibrant. The reds of Mr. Wickhams military jacket pops a bit, but most of the time it is very subtle and nuanced in how the adjustments are made. All in all, this is a good looking upscale that finally surpasses the VC-1 encoded ancient Blu-ray and puts it to bed.







Audio:

The new Dolby Atmos track is a minimal upgrade, but still any upgrade is appreciated. It has no problem with clear and precise dialog, and since this is a very dialogue centric film that takes up a vast majority of the run time. Vocals are crisp and clear, and ambient dialogue in the ball rooms fill out the surrounds a bit. Surrounds are generally fairly mild, but still quite pleasant with the period piece score and the moderate activity with groups of people. The same goes for the LFE channel. A few thumps and bumps along the way (a carriage rattling in the streets etc), but other than that this is VERY much a dialogue centric film.









Extras:

• Conversations with the Cast
• Jane Austen: Ahead of Her Time
• A Bennet Family Portrait
• HBO First Look: Pride & Prejudice
• The Politics of 18th Century Dating
• The Stately Homes of Pride & Prejudice
• Feature commentary with director Joe Wright

Final Score: ​

The new 4K UHD edition finally replaces the ancient VC-1 encoded Blu-ray (which is included in the set as a combo pack) with a great looking 4K remaster, as well as an Atmos track to expand the 5.1 track. The digital extras on the disc are the same extras found on the Blu-ray release from back in the day. But this special edition adds a wealth of physical swag, including a really nice fold over case, a 42 page art booklet, AND the joy of realizing that Universal didn’t put the discs in those horrible cardboard sleeve cases that scratch the discs (yes, I’m still bitter at that Mummy Trilogy set that I could never get scratch free discs on). This time they’re in a cardboard side of the flip track, but Universal put them on overlapped raised hub which, while not perfect, is leaps and bounds better than cardboard slip sleeves. A solid watch, a great new 4K release, and a snazzy collector’s edition package (the film also comes in standard packaging as well, which just includes the new 4K disc and the old Blu-ray without the swag). A great watch for Jane Austen fans.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Keira Knightley, Rosamund Pike, Jena Malone, Carey Mulligan, Donald Sutherland, Brenda Blethyn, Matthew Macfadyen
Directed by: Joe Wright
Written by: Dario Marianelli
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby TrueHD Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), French DTS 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Universal Pictures
Rated: PG
Runtime: 128 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: November 25th, 2025

Recommendation: Great Collector's Edition