Pride and Prejudice: A Second Review 10 Years Later

I first reviewed MGM’s Pride and Prejudice (1940) on this blog back in 2016. After revisiting the film recently, I decided to try a small experiment: write a second review without rereading the original. Would I see the movie the same way ten years later, or would time and perspective shift my impressions? If you’re curious, you can read my 2016 review—what follows is my fresh 2026 take.Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier.Adapting Pride and Prejudice into a two‑hour film inevitably requires compressing Austen’s layered novel into a much tighter frame. Characters who add texture and humor on the page—Mary Bennet, Mr. Collins, the Gardiners—are trimmed down or vanish altogether. Subplots are streamlined, social encounters condensed, and only a fraction of Austen’s sparkling dialogue survives the transition to screen. It’s the perennial challenge of adapting Austen: what do you keep, and what must you sacrifice? Given those challenges, MGM's 1940 film adaptation works very well. It follows…