Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

With a title like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you pretty much know what you're getting into. It's Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...with zombies. Surely Emma the Vampire Slayer is the next mash-up on the way? How about War and Peace and the Hunger Games? Or Wuthering Heights and the Avenging Ninjas? Oh, the possibilities are woefully endless. (Hollywood, please don't greenlight any of the aforementioned mash-ups. Just...don't.)

One can't deny the cleverness of Seth Grahame-Smith's concept, but the cleverness that made his particularly strange brew so profitable is seen but fleetingly in writer-director Burr Steers' film adaptation. Where Grahame-Smith managed to mesh Austen's pointed social comedy with an impending zombie apocalypse, Steers' blend falls decidedly flat. The film would have been dead on arrival were it not intermittently reanimated by the fragile and formidable Lily James as Elizabeth Bennett and a broadly comic supporting turn by Matt Smith as Mr. Collins.

There's a glimmer of potential as the Bennett sisters are introduced polishing their weaponry over talk of their marriage prospects. Shaolin-trained, the sisters are ever at the ready to unsheath the knives hidden beneath their gowns and slay any undead that lurches their way. Zombies may be a threat, but they're far easier minefield to tread than courtship and marriage, the story seems to suggest. In this light, Elizabeth's role as warrior lends another dimension to her intelligence and strength of character - a man would truly have to be her match for her to lay down her sword and settle into marriage. Spinsterhood would be more of a solace than the security of a marriage devoid of love.

The man to challenge her is Mr. Darcy (Sam Riley), here repurposed as a colonel intent on unmasking the zombies amongst the gentry with the help of carrion flies, who have the knack for sniffing out dead flesh. Riley takes the dourness a bit too far - it's a bit hard to fathom why Elizabeth would shed her sword (or anything else) for this depressing dullard, yet such are the skills of James that she enchants you into believing that there is life in this stillborn romance.

Riley is not the only one who falters. Douglas Booth is given barely anything to work with as Mr. Bingley; he's attractive, to be sure, but not talented enough to overcome the half-dimensionality of his role with the sheer force of any existing charisma. Jack Huston as the manipulative Mr. Wickham fares marginally better. In reality, the women are the true rulers of this world - they're the movers and shakers, the slayers and makers - and the men are merely bland and useless pawns to be shunted about. Though women are given a more nakedly influential power here, the only female character with any depth is Elizabeth Bennett. Part of this is in the writing, but most of it is in James' portrayal - it makes one wish the producers had abandoned this idea and gone for a straight adaptation of Austen's novel.

Ultimately, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies lacks the instinct to embrace its own ridiculousness. Steers is no help - he fails to excel in the zombie genre (the gore is unremarkable), can barely stage an action scene, and lacks the finesse to fashion a comedy of manners or craft a credible love story.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Directed by: Burr Steers

Written by: Burr Steers; based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith

Starring: Lily James, Sam Riley, Bella Heathcote, Douglas Booth, Jack Huston, Ellie Bamber, Millie Brady, Suki Waterhouse, Charles Dance, Sally Phillips, Matt Smith, Lena Headey, Emma Greenwell