By this time the Jane Austen novel qualifies as a repertory piece, a mettle-test for would-be Darcys and Elizabeth Bennets, little different from Romeo and Juliet. The team behind the present production of it, apart from their attempt to replace the titular conjunction with a dashing ampersand, earn no points for imagination or courage in finding their way to so trafficky a corner of the library. (Can no one, for a change, find his way to the shelf of Thomas Love Peacock? George Meredith?) And the prospect of again sitting through the machinations of the author's mating game (match four from Column A to four from Column B) sounds quite tedious in advance. Nevertheless, the filmmakers have not failed to make it involving. Austen herself made it hard for them to fail, as long as they stuck close to the text. Joe Wright, a British TV director in his feature debut, certainly did more than his share to gum up the works, with an anemic, coarse-grained image and a lot of mushy telephoto camerawork: a pale substitute for the MGM sheen of 1940. And Matthew MacFadyen makes a dull Darcy, a blank, more stuporous than brooding, a kind of waxwork Stan Laurel. Any doubts, however, as to the star potential of Keira Knightley — and after the likes of Domino and The Jacket and King Arthur, how could there not have been doubts? — are decisively routed. She may be too pretty for Elizabeth, she may be too young, but she is just sufficiently feisty, just sufficiently fiery, without being too and too. It's a tightrope she walks, and she keeps perfect balance. Two old pros, Brenda Blethyn and Judi Dench, bring solid support as two very dissimilar women, the high-strung Mrs. Bennet and the haughty Lady de Bourgh. Any well-bred young woman who can endure the one on a daily basis and stand up to the other in a moment of crisis must be made of stern stuff. Donald Sutherland, Rosamund Pike, Jena Malone, Tom Hollander. (2005) — Duncan Shepherd