And that's an angle of Austen's book that Wright understands better than anyone who's ever adapted it. This is Wright's first movie (he has previously made features for British television, including a miniseries about Charles II), and until he was approached by producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, he hadn't even read the novel. When he finally did read it, he realized, as he says in the movie's press notes, that Austen was "one of the first British realists."

That's the kind of brilliant observation that makes the difference between a vital adaptation and a merely faithful one. Wright chose to focus on Austen's realism instead of going for what he calls "the picturesque tradition" -- the sort of thing where the camera lingers forever on dumb candlesticks just to show us how perfectly of-the-period they are. Cinematographer Roman Osin shoots "Pride & Prejudice" as if it were an action picture, not in the sense of giving us flashy car chases, but in the sense of rejecting cushy compositions. There's always something happening in the frame, even if it's just the arch of a character's eyebrow. At one point, Osin's camera pans slowly from a crowded ball to a quiet, darkened room, where we see a pensive Lizzy framed within the shadows, like an Ingres painting come to life. And in one of my favorite moments, the scolding Mrs. Bennet chases after Lizzy as she runs out of the house, frustrated by her mother's ditziness. A bunch of nearby geese seize the opportunity to run after her, craning their necks and flapping their wings, talking crazy talk as geese do -- but even in their absurdity, they make more sense than Mrs. Bennet does.

Those geese notwithstanding, there's nothing in "Pride & Prejudice" more exhilarating than the mere sight of Darcy and Lizzy. Macfadyen and Knightley's scenes together have a crisp surface texture that gradually gives way to the layers of vulnerability beneath. Both performances build in intensity and complexity, independently and in tandem. Darcy and Lizzy are falling in love not so much during their moments together as between them, and the actors clue us in to the interior action with small, nearly invisible gestures -- a hesitation here, a nervous bit of finger wriggling there. In one of the movie's loveliest scenes -- which takes place at a second ball, much more lavish than the first one, at which Darcy and Lizzy first met -- they finally do deign to dance together. And the flickers of conversation they manage to fit in between the steps tell them things about each other that, in their now firmly cemented dislike for each other, they don't want to hear.

As the dance winds down, and the conversation does too, the other revelers around Lizzy and Darcy gradually dissolve, a visual effect that makes perfect metaphorical sense, and not just because all lovers inhabit their own private world. Lizzy and Darcy have literally been separated from the pack -- from the noise and the color and the distractions of other human bodies -- and for the first time, they're left alone with the terrifying potential of what, together, they could be. It's a possibility neither of them can face up to just yet, and so they hand it to us, temporarily, for safekeeping. It's our responsibility, and our pleasure, to hold their secret for them until they finish the dance.

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