“Pride & Prejudice” director Joe Wright is finally revealing how that now-iconic hand flex came to be. The beloved 2005 Jane Austen adaptation stars Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. The yearning between the duo is captured most exquisitely by Darcy (Macfadyen) twitching his hand as though reaching toward Elizabeth during the second half of the film.
Wright told THR in honor of the film’s 20-year re-release that the scene was included to show how Darcy and Elizabeth’s “bodies” already realized their inevitable romance before either of them consciously did.
“The hand scene was really a kind of articulation for me of this idea that sometimes our bodies know best,” Wright said, “that our minds might be a little slow to catch up, and that both Darcy and Elizabeth’s bodies, their hands, their whole nervous system, is aware of the importance of that person in their lives and in their futures. She certainly isn’t, but he has a growing awareness at this point. And when he flexes his hand as he walks away, it’s a kind of almost a shaking off of that feeling of that reality.”
Wright also spoke to how important the casting was for the film. The director wanted to have younger actors in the lead roles to more accurately represent the ages of the characters in the novel.
“It’s a story about very young people falling in love for the first time and written by a very young person discovering her talent for the first time, so it was really important that the film had that energy,” Wright said. “Previous iterations of ‘Pride & Prejudice’ or other period movies had often cast actors, male and female in their kind of twenties, late twenties, even once they’ve become slightly more established. But that seemed wrong to me.”
And Wright even had his two leads film two very different endings for the film, based on international audiences.
“The original film has actually two endings: One version that was for America and one version that was for everyone else,” he said. “I didn’t have final cut on the movie at the time, and after much debate, it was a kind of compromise solution. The American version had a final scene of Darcy and Elizabeth on their wedding night, speaking posies to each other, and I felt it was a little too sweet and sentimental. I much preferred the ending that ended on Mr. Bennett and his joy at his daughter’s betrothal. So there are two endings out there.”
“Pride & Prejudice” is now receiving a Netflix adaptation led by Emma Corrin, Jack Lowden, and Olivia Colman.
