Will the Real Mr. Darcy Please Stand Up?

By Kathryn Atwood

Fitzwilliam Darcy is supposed to be a bore. Actually, most of the good guys in Jane Austen's novels of love and marriage, which she set in Regency England, have a dull veneer, especially when contrasted with their flashy but morally flawed foils. Who wouldn't sense a fatal attraction to such dashing rogues as Willoughby (Sense & Sensibility), Frank Churchill (Emma), and Wickham (Pride and Prejudice) instead of the shy Edward Ferrars, the middle-aged, sensible Mr. Knightly and the uncommunicative, snobbish Mr. Darcy? Austen lets her heroines, those models of courageous self-realization, uncover the paucity of character beneath the dashing rogue veneer while simultaneously giving them the ability to see the gold mine of quality beneath the drab surface of her heroes.

Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy is perhaps the most notable of these heroes-disguised-as-bores, and that is because Pride and Prejudice is generally considered to be the most popular Austen novel. It is a Cinderella story that has the poor girl telling the proposing prince to get lost because she thinks he's a jerk. Well, Darcy is a jerk, but he's a really, really rich jerk. What spirit! Elizabeth Bennet, however, is not so mired in her beloved prejudices as to be obtuse to the growing realization that this boring stiff might possess some attractive virtues that are as solid as his material wealth (and this awakening self-knowledge makes her one of the most interesting characters in classic literature).

The novel has been transformed to celluloid many times, but I would like to explore here only those adaptations which keep Darcy and Elizabeth in Regency England, where Austen placed them. The story has timeless truths which can be transferred to any setting, I suppose, but since I happen to be a literature purist, I most savor watching adaptations that place literary characters in their original settings. Much as I enjoyed watching Mr. Darcy time-travel to Victorian England (the 1940 version was at least 50 years off in setting not to mention about 1,000 miles from the original plot points) and fly to 21st century India for Bride and Prejudice, I would like to concern myself here with the films that place him where Austen did.

Released in 1980, the BBC version of P&P includes more of the actual novel than any other adaptation and stars the ebullient Elizabeth Garvey as Elizabeth Bennet and David Rintoul as Darcy. Rintoul pours all his energy into the snobbish side of Darcy, creating a two-dimensional, cartoonish performance. His stiff gait and jutting chin serve as constant reminders (like we needed reminders) of Darcy's prideful character. Austen's Mr. Darcy is indeed a cold snob whose initial marriage proposal is vastly easy to resist, but refusing the proposal of Rintoul's Darcy must be a breeze. His facial contours soften so drastically during the story's second marriage proposal that he almost looks like a different person. Well, in Elizabeth's eyes he was, of course, but his performance in the main is so two-dimensional that it is the least appealing in this well-meaning and largely successful literal adaptation.

The 1995 A&E version, although a visual stunner which remains outwardly faithful to most of the book, does some major overhauling to Austen's characterizations. Mr. Collins is not merely a pompous doofus; he's a creepy pompous doofus. Jane Bennet is a good girl only because her IQ isn't all that high. Colin Firth's Darcy — whose smolderingly passionate performance earned him cult status among an adoring female fan base — resembles a Byronic hero, the stuff of 19th century Romanticism. His performance makes one think that Firth might have gotten lost on his way to an adaptation of Wuthering Heights. His Darcy certainly won our hearts, but I'm not sure he would have won Austen's; she was writing during the Regency period and liked her heroes to keep their emotions under wraps.

Matthew MacFadyen stars as Darcy in the most recent adaptation, which manages to sprint through the novel's major plot points in just over two hours, occasionally catching its breath during some artistic liberties of such sheer cinematic beauty and raw emotional truth that even an Austen purist (if she is also a fan of cinematic beauty and raw emotional truth) can easily forgive them. Does MacFadyen accomplish what Rintoul and Firth could not? A resounding yes! MacFadyen's Darcy is a solemn snob, unwilling to communicate except through his expressive eyes, and who "will not take the trouble of practicing" his underused conversational skills. His attraction to Keira Knightly's Elizabeth is quite palpable, yet he somehow manages to remain an 18th century stiff throughout the entire film. He is Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy through and through while giving an attractive performance that appeals to 21st century sensibilities.

I couldn't fall for Rintoul's Darcy and fell way too hard for Firth's; MacFadyen expertly combines the different angles of Darcy's difficult character to create a winning portrayal. Austen herself would have fallen hard.