Death Comes to Pemberley (2013, Daniel Percival)

Now, when a fan of something writes a sequel to that something… it tends to be called “fan-fic.” Death Comes to Pemberley is based on fan-fic from an extremely well-regarded author. P.D. James is even a baroness. But she hasn’t got anything to say about Pride and Prejudice. Worse, unless screenwriter Juliette Towhidi really screwed things up, James didn’t even have a good murder mystery for her murder mystery fan-fic sequel to Prejudice.

There’s a murder in Pemberley. There’s some mystery. But there’s no murder mystery. There’s not even much in the way of sincere scenes. There are a lot of sincere performances–Matthew Rhys is awesome as Darcy, Eleanor Tomlinson is really good as his little sister, both James Norton and Tom Ward are awesome as her suitors. In the “lead”, Anna Maxwell Martin is okay as Elizabeth. She has a really crappy part, actually.

The problem is the script… and the direction. Director Percival has obviously seen a lot of “Downton Abbey,” because he makes Steve Lawes shoot the thing just like an “Abbey” episode. It’s kind of desperate.

Back to Towhidi’s script. There’s no tension. Pemberley is a three-part mini-series event and only the first episode has any tension whatsoever and only because Percival has to try really hard.

Oh, real nice performance from Trevor Eve too. Can’t forget about him.

The ending is trite and simplistic. Percival and Towhidi can’t even handle the most simple of reveals.

Still, lovely acting.

★½

CREDITS

Directed by Daniel Percival; screenplay by Juliette Towhidi, based on the novel by P.D. James and characters created by Jane Austen; director of photography, Steve Lawes; edited by Dave Thrasher; music by The Insects; production designer, Grant Montgomery; produced by David M. Thompson and Eliza Mellor; aired by the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Starring Matthew Rhys (Fitzwilliam Darcy), Anna Maxwell Martin (Elizabeth Darcy), Matthew Goode (George Wickham), Jenna Coleman (Lydia Wickham), Tom Ward (Colonel Fitzwilliam), Eleanor Tomlinson (Georgiana Darcy), James Norton (Henry Alveston), Nichola Burley (Louisa Bidwell), Penelope Keith (Lady Catherine de Burgh) and Trevor Eve (Sir Selwyn Hardcastle).