#matthew darbyshire

[redscharlach]

Art from this year’s Frieze Sculpture exhibit in Regent’s Park, free to view until 13 November 2022.

[mentaltimetraveller]

Matthew Darbyshire, Xerox No.13 – Mother and Child, 2017, extruded concrete and steel armature, 175 x 60 x 50 cm

[stuff-for-penthouses]

Matthew Darbyshire

Radiograph No. 5 - Herman Miller Aeron office chair (caressed by Roxman Gatt), 2018

[bhige]

Matthew Darbyshire

Water Cooler, 2014

[monumentraider]

Matthew Darbyshire, Untitled Furniture Island no 4, Mixed media by jacquemart Via Flickr: Occasional Geometries, Rana Begum curate the Arts Council Collection

[mimeticspace]

Matthew Darbyshire

[opabiniawillreturn]

Richard Masbruch

Quonshe Brinmer

Karen White

Matthew Harks

Tara Pearshall

Fallon Aubee

Tara Desousa

John Boulachanis

Josie Smith

Jessica Winfield

Kayleigh-Louise Woods

Gerald Matovu

Lauren Jeska

Kyle Zoe Lynes

Paris Green

Claire Darbyshire

Tiffany Scott

Davina Ayrton

Lisa Hauxwell

Marcia Walker

Jorven Seren

Vicky Green

Pauline Long

Chloe Walker

Ella Davies

Kristen Lukess

Geraldo Tucciarone

Katie Dolatowski

Tony Prince

Carol Lee

Lucy Edwards

Lana Law

+ more (if you'd like me to list the others please let me know, there was a very long list of names)

these are the names of violent misogynists, rapists, sex offenders, pedophiles, and murderers that identify as trans women. a quick search and I found the first few just glancing at some articles, and the rest were on a compiled list. I wrote the names here as the ones I found, because looking up some of their "deadnames" might not yield any results.

[bushybook]

Matthew Darbyshire, Le Chant du Rossignol 2008 Video 10:11 minutes

[parkinsonismblr-blog]

TIM murderers

“Woman” killed neighbor before shooting self

John “Johnny” Jacobson Jr/Skylar Deleon – Armed burglary and murder

Craig Hudson – Tortured/killed wife, fights to wear wig in prison

William Gray – Killed two women

Derek Sinden, who identifies as a woman, assaulted/killed elderly woman after invading her home                                

Mark van N. – Dentist who killed his wife and mutilated the teeth of some 100 patients

Matthew “Maddie” Smith, murder

Dr. Richard Sharpe – Killed wife during divorce

Michael Adams – Shot and killed girlfriend

Raven Navajo – Transsexual who murdered a woman

Douglas/Donna Perry – Blames shooting dead 3 prostituted women on former male identity

Jeanne Marie Druley – Transsexual who shot and killed a woman he “loved”

Geoffrey Websdale – Shot 4 people, killing 2

Matthew “Maxine” Richardson – Murdered prostituted woman

Douglas Wakefield/Tai Pilley – Murdered uncle, killed male inmate, took guard hostage, & had sexual relations with women in prison after transfer          

Paul Charles Denyer – Transsexual serial killer, who “hated women in general”

Robert/Michelle Kosilek – Murdered wife, nearly decapitating her head with piano wire

Paul Luckman – Kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered boys

Maddison Hall – Shot and killed a hitchhiker, sexually predated on women and raped his cellmate in women’s prison after transfer

Lyralisa Stevens – Shot and killed a woman

Robert/Rebecca Hilton – Murder

Michelle-Lael Norsworthy – Murder

Rodney/Shiloh Quine – Kidnapping, robbery and murder    

Wolfgang “Beate” Schmidt – Serial killer who murdered five women and one of their babies, raped bodies, and attempted attack on a 12 year old girl

Yesenia Patino – Transsexual who brutally murdered boyfriend’s wife

Hadden Clark – Serial killer, drank women/girl’s blood to “become a woman              

Transgender woman and male lover torture woman to death in sadistic fetish

LGBT Media Ignores Case of Transgender Who Killed Lesbian Couple and Son

Transsexual kills neighbor over noise and being uncomfortable with being transsexual

Nastasia Laura Bilyk is a Man serving a life sentence for murdering a Woman in 1987. He decided he was a Woman in 2008, and now wants to be transferred to a Women’s prison in Canada.

Sex-change suit by California inmate Philip Rosati (convicted of murder) OKd by court

The murder of Rita Powers and a male transgenderist’s narcissistic rage

Edmonds Tennent Brown IV, a man who identifies as a woman named Katheryn Brown, is seeking state-funded hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery (“SRS”) while serving a life sentence without parole in a South Carolina prison for the rape and murder of Mary Lynn Witherspoon. Although Brown pled guilty, he now claims he did so “under duress during an emotionally difficult time…likened to PMS.

Luis Morales/Synthia China-Blast – rape and murder of a teen girl:

Steve “Nikkas” Alamillo – murder

Thomas “Lisa” Strawn – Murder [same article as above, also mentioned]

Peter Laing/Paris Green – beat, tortured and murdered a man, moved to another women’s prison after having sexual relations with female inmates

  Mark Brooks/Jessica Brooks – murder

Melissa Young – Murders neighbor over rejecting Christmas gift

David Wesley Birrell/Bella-Christina Birrell,

Yolanda Gonzalez – Murder

Philip Taplin – Murder

Donald Geoffrey McPherson/Kimmie McPherson – Murder

Glen Robert Askeborn/Samantha Glenner – Child abuse, battery and murder

Trans-Identified Man Poses as Woman to Lure, Blackmail, & Kill Man: Alhan Khan

Cross-Dressing Soldier Murders Wife to Stop Her from Exposing His Secret: Logan Kyle

Transitioning Male Trans Teen Viciously Stabs Parents to Death on Halloween: Andrew “Andrea” Balcer

Killer Transgender Feels Oppressed by the Prison System: Jade September

Male Transgender Stalks, Stabs Driver to Death in Road Rage Incident: Derya Yıldırım

Male Transgender Kills His Uncle to Fund ‘Gender’ Surgery: Vonlee Nicole Titlow

Transgender and Prominent Trans Rights Activist Slaughters Long-time Friend: Gigi Thomas

Michael Chidgey

Liam Suleman / Lucy Edwards

William Jaggs

2016 – Jenny Swift killed Eric Flanagan

2015 – Claire Darbyshire killed Brian Darbyshire (father)

2015 – Graham Cleary-Senior killed Frances Cleary-Senior (wife)

2013 – Alan Baker/Alex Stewart killed John Weir

2013 – Colin Coates tortured and killed Lynda Spence

2010 – Christopher Hunnisett* killed Peter Bick

2010 – Senthooran Kanagasingham killed David/Sonia Burgess

2010 – Paul Hayhurst killed Alexander Toner

2008 – Gavin Boyd killed Vikki McGrand (sister in law)

2006 – Steve Wright killed Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls

2004 – Daniel Eastwood* killed fellow prisoner Paul Algae

2002 – Ian/Lian Huntley* killed Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman

2001 – Christopher Hunnisett* killed Ronald Glazebrook

2001 – Samantha Read killed Simon Spicer (partner)

2001 – Malcolm French killed Christopher Loftus (wife’s new partner)

2000 – Karen Lawson* killed Michael Cutler (partner)

2000 – Robert/Emma Page* killed Clive White

1995 – William Wotherspoon acquitted of killing Francis McMillan

1987 – Lennie Smith* suspected of killing of 5 children, let off on technicality:

Smith was also charged with the murder of seven year old Mark Tildesley in 1987 but charges were subsequently dropped as the person who named him as the killer (Leslie Bailey) was himself convicted of the manslaughter of the child (having confessed to having been present) and this was insufficient evidence to secure a conviction without a confession from Smith.

Smith was part of a group of paedophile men including Sidney Cooke, Robert Oliver and Leslie Bailey who are believed to have tortured, raped and killed at least 5 young boys in the 1980s. Oliver was jailed for 15 years in for the manslaughter of 14-year old Jason Swift; Smith was also arrested for the killing but never charged.

[lsmithart]

Exhibition Task: Research into Similar Exhibitions

‘In Ruins’ by Meadow Arts (2019)

Holly Hendry, Take Good Care of My Baby, 2014

In partnership with English Heritage, Meadow Arts hosted an exhibition in the ruins of Witley Court in Worcestershire. Its purpose was to draw attention to  our ‘enduring attraction to ruins and how they are still relevant today’.

Contemporary artworks were displayed across the grounds and in the ruined mansion, including sculptures by Alex Hartley, Tim Etchells, Holly Hendry and Jack Evans, photographs by Marchand & Meffre, Amelie Labourdette and Stuart Whipps. Postcards by Ellen Harvey and a disused Woolworth’s shopfront by Matthew Darbyshire were also featured.

This exhibition is a key reference point for my exhibition idea as it is based from a very similar contextual purpose.

Alex Hartley, Facade, 2019

‘Living Ruins’ by Meadow Arts (2019)

Alexander Cozens, A Ruined Building, 1700s

At the same time as In Ruins there was another exhibition held in the Worcester City Museum and Art Gallery titled Living Ruins. It coincided with the exhibition held at the ruined grounds but instead of solely contemporary artists works being featured, it featured works from the 18th Century to present, exploring the influence of ruins in art over this period. It included ‘important and rarely seen artworks from Worcester Museum’s own collection and a series of exciting works on loan from The Tate, which delve into our attraction to what has passed but survive as Living Ruins’.

Ged Quinn, Bela Forgets the Scissors, 2016

‘Ruin Lust’ at Tate Britain (2014)

Jane and Louise Azeville, 2006

Ruin Lust, was an exhibition that took place at Tate Britain in 2014. Its purpose was to “offer a guide to the mournful, thrilling, comic and perverse uses of ruins in art from the seventeenth century to the present day” (Tate, no date). According to the Tate, the exhibition was the widest-ranging on the subject of ruins to date and included over 100 artworks. Artists work featured including:  J.M.W. Turner, John Constable, John Martin, Eduardo Paolozzi, Rachel Whiteread, Gerard Byrne and Tacita Dean.

The exhibition explored the concept of ruins through “both the slow picturesque decay and abrupt apocalypse” (Tate, no date). It also included artworks that were born as a result of wars, as well as in relation to the ruin of the image and technology.

John Armstrong, Coggeshal Church, Essex, 1940.

Project Space: Ruins in Reverse at Tate Modern (2013)

Rä di Martino, No More Stars (Star Wars), 2013

This exhibition was produced as a collaboration between Tate Modern and Museo de Arte de Lima-MALI (one of Peru’s most important museums). It took place in ‘Project Space’ which is Tate’s “dedicated space for presenting emerging and recently established international artists”. (Tate, no date). 

The purpose of the show was to demonstrate an alternative way of thinking about the traditional divide between historical monuments and discarded urban ruins, considering how these could be brought together whilst also exploring contemporary ideas of archaeology, fiction and reality. Artists involved in the exhibition were: Rä di Martino, Pablo Hare, José Carlos Martinat, Haroon Mirza, Eliana Otta and Amalia Pica.

All of the above mentioned exhibitions are key reference points in relation to my exhibition proposal in a variety of ways. They all consider both alternative and traditional perspectives on the concept of ruins and demonstrate the many ways in which this notion can be explored. The subject matter has been the basis of many artworks spanning the last 3 centuries, providing its prominence within both historical and contemporary art context.

REFERENCES:

In Ruins (no date). [Online]. Available at https://www.meadowarts.org/exhibitions/in-ruins. [Accessed on 23/05/2020] Living Ruins (no date). [Online]. Available at https://www.meadowarts.org/exhibitions/living-ruins. [Accessed on 23/05/2020] Tate, (no date). Project Space: Ruins in Reverse – Exhibition at Tate Modern | Tate. [Online]. Available at https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibitionseries/project-space/project-space-ruins-reverse. [Accessed on 23/05/2020] Tate, (no date). Ruin Lust – Exhibition at Tate Britain | Tate. [Online]. Available at https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/ruin-lust. [Accessed on 23/05/2020]

[micaramel]

Artist: Josh Brand

Venue: Herald St, London hosting Misako & Rosen, Tokyo

Exhibition Title: Condo London 2020

Date: January 11 – February 16, 2020

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Herald St, London

Press Release:

At a time when the photographic production of images feels more taken for granted and public than ever, Josh Brand’s peculiarly private way of creating and thinking about photographs is refreshing. Indeed, where most contemporary images seek to communicate or generate some form of desire or envy (for oneself, the good life, things, etc), Brand’s images all but withdraw into themselves, insisting on their own making, mystery, and hieroglyphic privacy. It’s as if his photographic images reserved the right to eschew their primary function –representation– in favour of evocation and that contemporary bugbear, autonomy: the relative autonomy of procedure, chance, and finally what the image itself wants.

Dignifying the desires of his medium, Brand’s method is not about pointing and shooting, but rather about a process that takes place almost entirely in the darkroom and includes everything from the photogram, film, photocopy, collage and other techniques and materials. Enigmatic motifs, or “characters” as Brand calls them, such as the folding room, the broken room, the Horus eye figure, red seed, plant, Horus eye scale, among others, are subjected to a series of procedures in which they both appear and become all but unrecognisable. In this way, these new works draw upon and synthesise Brand’s three previous exhibitions at Herald St while looking back to the sometimes esoteric origins of photography and its relationship to film, constructivism, and image making. The photos collected here can almost be seen as instances of animation, punctuated by large gaps, conceivably projected by a magic lantern or a camera obscura. As such, Brand’s photographs bring to mind the materially complex origins of photography as well as the potentially evocative nature of images themselves, as an ideal.

By Chris Sharp

Josh Brand (b. 1980, Elkhorn) lives and works in Brooklyn. Selected solo and group shows include: What Wind, Ceysson & Bénétière, New York (2019); Alexandra Bircken, Josh Brand, Matthew Darbyshire, Michael Dean, Cary Kwok, Amalia Pica, Nicole Wermers, Herald St | Museum St, London (2018); Adrian Rosenfeld, San Francisco (2018); Double Take, Drawing Room, London (2016); Peace Being, Herald St, London (2015); Never Enough: Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas (2014); Personal Space, Essex Flowers, New York (2014); Misako and Rosen, Tokyo (2014 and 2011); Nature, Herald St, London (2012); Update, White Columns, New York (2011); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2010); Grange Prize for Contemporary Photography, AGO – Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2010); Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (2010); La Preuve Concrete, curated by Bettina Klein, CEAAC, Strasbourg, FR (2009) and The Possible Document, Herald St, London (2008); White Columns (Project), New York (2007). Brand’s work is further held in the collections of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Dallas Museum of Art.

Link: Josh Brand at Herald St hosting Misako & Rosen

Contemporary Art Daily is produced by Contemporary Art Group, a not-for-profit organization. We rely on our audience to help fund the publication of exhibitions that show up in this RSS feed. Please consider supporting us by making a donation today.

from Contemporary Art Daily http://bit.ly/2SmDxzG

[kelseyjadeowen-blog]

Matthew Darbyshire

While out shopping I found some artwork in Selfridges London by Matthew Darbyshire. Each sculpture is made from cast marble and resin.

“Brand Deity No.3 (Hermes)” 2018

“Brand Deity No.5 (Venus)” 2018

“Brand Deity No.2 (Nike)” 2018

18/11/2018

[footballwive-fmp]

Project proposal  Assignment Title Ronaldo’s girlfriends

Section 1: Review (approx.150 words). Through my art and design course I have been learning how to develop ideas in my work through 3D and showing progression and experimentation with media and materials. I also learnt about time keeping and having a good amount of alternatives to select the best from for a finish. I have also looked at some very inspirational pieces to help me with my creativity in 3D such as Rachel Kneebone, the Chapman brothers and Auguste Rodin. I have also been trying to be original in my work. By creating models in various materials I have found my idea developing and changing. What I hope to do with this project is to show my ideas clearly and think about the presentation. Through this year I have also been sorting out my portfolio for university. The skills I have learned have been very helpful. I have learned how to present my work neatly and confidently.

Section 2: Project Concept (approx. 250 words). I got my initial idea from a video which was all about Cristiano Ronaldo and all his girlfriends. The reason why I chose Cristiano Ronaldo is because I am a big fan of football and he is a well-known person. Another reason why I chose this subject is because in the video it shows all the girls like they are porn-stars or something and I just thinks it shows us what type of women he’s into as well as what they all have in common. I am going to look at the background that some of these women have and see how they are presented on their pictures. I am also going to figure out how I can present my work for the show. I will show my development through my drawings in my book and on my sheets. I will experiment with materials and objects to create my piece Using my skills I have developed through the past two years I will encourage myself to look at different approaches to help me find what I’m looking for. For my 3D sculpture I need to think of what I am going to bring into it and what will it present more of: the girls or Cristiano.  

Section 3: Evaluation (approx. 100 words). I will talk to tutors to get their views on how my work is progressing and I will also present my project to the other students in the group to see their reactions .Then I will evaluate the techniques and the difficulties I went through to get me to my final piece by noting things in the sketchbook and on the A1 sheets and in the blog for my FMP.

Proposed Research Sources & Bibliography (Harvard format).

Whitechapel Gallery The National Portrait Museum Beaconsfield Gallery Newport Street Gallery Youtube: google The National Portrait Museum                                                                              Whitechapel Gallery                                                                                                Beaconsfield Gallery                                                                                               British Museum                                                                                                        looked at work by: Suzi Malin; Frank Auerbach; David Bomberg; Walter Richard Sickert; Vanessa Bell; Frank Dobson; Mark Dion (Theatre of the Natural World); Simon Periton; Darren Finch; Douglas Gordon, Richard Wright (Art for the Elizabeth Line); Matthew Darbyshire; Jim Lambi; Mike Nelson; Paul McCarthy; Alice Channer; Jonna Kina; Rachel Howard; John Copeland; John Walter; ect. Artists who have inspired me: Mimmo Paladino; Racheal Kneebone; Nickolas Pope; Mark Dion.               

[swipestream]

Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 2

I wrote a review of The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly two years ago. For various reasons, I did not read the online stories as they appeared since then. I waited for the next volume (#2) that covers 2011-2013.

The book has a nice cover by Robert Zoltan that is better than most of the photo-shopped covers for mass market paperbacks these days.

Trade paperback size that is 243 pages including eight poems and twelve stories. Cost was $12.99 from Amazon.

The introduction “Sword and Sorcery” is by the hominid known as Mark Finn. He is the editor for the magazine Skelos. The introduction reminded me of his introduction to the first issue of Skelos where he argued old versus new.

                “Sword and Sorcery isn’t just Karl Edward Wagner, and Robert E. Howard, and Michael Moorcock anymore. . . But times change. We’re a different society than the ones these luminaries railed against. And yet we’re kinda sorta the same too, aren’t we?”

Which is it? A commenter a few weeks back on my review of Legends II made a good point about fantasy writers should strive to write fantasy that reflects timeless truths. I would add sword and sorcery also delves into our primal fears.

Sword and sorcery fiction is a conservative and may I dare say it reactionary form of fiction. Robert E. Howard had no interest in the future. He saw only decadence, rot, and decay going forward. Recrudescence would happen with collapse and rebirth through violence.

Fiction that eschews the eternal in the human condition in exchange for the current cause du jour is going to date badly in short order. There is a reason that science fiction writers including Isaac Asimov and Alfred Bester despised sword and sorcery. The genre really should be little to no different from the 1930s. Any proclamations on the need to change or “evolve” should be viewed with suspicion as an attempt to converge the form.

R. Michael Burns returns with another Hokage the samurai story in “Demon-Fang.” Hokage obtains a cursed sword the hard way.

James Frederick William Rowe has an Irish based story, “The Worship of the Lord of the Estuary and the Wages of Heroism.” This was a good to great story with a monster fish terrorizing a sea-side community. A young would be hero takes on the monster. This story should have been included in one of the year’s best fantasy anthologies. I am curious why James Frederick William Rowe uses three first names. Rowe is a name in my lineage. It is of Norman origin (originally de Roux). We just might be kin-folk.

“Death at the Pass” by Michael R. Fletcher is a tale of necromancy and an army of the un-dead. Interesting to see the perspective of a reanimated corpse.

Peter Darbyshire’s “The Princess Trap” started out with:

“Saleema was an orphaned sheepherder until her seventeenth year, when a talking dragon landed in the mountain meadow one summer day and ate all her sheep.”

WRONG ANSWER! I skipped the story at this point.

Sean Patrick Kelley’s “Crown of Sorrows” is a hard-boiled sword and sorcery tale of a captured mercenary forced to recover a crown from a monarch.

“Rhindor’s Remission” by Russell Miller started out with:

“He was pissing hot gravel.”

I read the rest of the page, scanned through the rest of the story without reading in detail. I am not a fan of humorous fantasy (except for Jack Vance). This story revolves around conflict between two wizards.

“A Game of Chess” by David Pilling lost me with:

“People forget that England was a different country then. Decades of Arthur’s Peace, during which the land was steadily tamed and civilized, have stifled the memory of what a wild place it was in the old days.”

If you are talking King Arthur, it was Britain, not England. That is a peeve of mine. Arthur was a British Celt, England was founded by invading Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.

Ben Godby’s “Dusts of War” is an interesting sword and sorcery spy story that has a Cold War paranoia about it. Interesting story.

Rakhar the Half-Orc is the main character for David Charlton’s “Kingdom of Graves.” Rakhar the Half-Orc is also a grave-digger who can use his shovel as a weapon when need be. A sorcerous plague and then zombie apocalypse takes place and a show-down with the culprit. Good story though I associate the word “orc” with J. R. R. Tolkien who created the term. Goes to show to show how words seep into popular culture.

Orcs show up again in “Lord of the Tattered Banner” by Kristopher Reisz. This time they are slaves to human working in mines, fighting in the arena, and proverbial cannon fodder in wars. A prophecy is spread of a champion who will free the orcs.

“Nicor” by Matthew Quinn has a shipload of Danish Vikings fighting a Nicor. Think of the fish-man that terrorized the ship on Jonny Quest.

J. S. Bangs’ “The Lion and the Thorn Tree” has an African setting and rifles. A recent widow takes on a ghost lion terrorizing the neighborhood. My big gripe is it is written in first person. I just really dislike first person narratives anymore.

There is an interior illustration for each story. I have to say I really did not like most of the black and white interior illos. I am persnickety about interior art.

So, there you have it. I thought this volume was a little better than volume one. There were a couple of stories I did not like but I never expect to like every story in an anthology.

Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 2 published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[mimeticspace]

Matthew Darbyshire

[ruthgabyguerrero]

How to Find Love the Way Elizabeth Bennet Did: A Pride and Prejudice Film Review

Pride and Prejudice is a film version of the Jane Austen novel by the same name.

The novel has been made into screen adaptations in the past; including a film in 1940 starring Greer Garson and Lawrence Olivier, a six-episode mini series on the BBC in 1995, a Bollywood-style adaption in 2004 named Bride and Prejudice and most recently a quirky zombie adaptation named Pride and Prejudice and Zombies released in cinemas in the U.S. in 2016.

Director Joe Wright remained traditional and life-like in the aesthetic of film, whose costumes assembled by Jacqueline Durran afforded them a Satellite Award for Best Costume Design. With scenes of green meadows, vintage architecture and furnishings, and extremely natural appearances in the actors, the film transported viewers to proper 19th century England. He produced the familiar characters with much charisma and participated in bringing Austen’s words to life all the more vividly.

The story, which takes place in the early 19th century, is about a family with five daughters whose parents--primarily the anxious mother Mrs. Bennett (Brenda Blethyn)--are preoccupied with making sure their daughters are properly married before their passing. But Keira Knightley as the second eldest daughter Elizabeth Bennet, who is one of the two main characters in the film, portrayes exceptionally well the quick-witted beloved character whose more preoccupied with reading and uttering the occasional wisecracks about men than finding a suitor.

Two of Lizzie’s younger sister’s, Lydia and Kitty Bennet (Jenna Malone and Carey Mulligan), who are attached at the hip, are the sisters conditioned by their mother that a husband and marriage are the ultimate goal in life. They're the embarrassing siblings to Elizabeth, or Lizzie, as her family calls her, because when not giggling simultaneously or batting their eyelashes at any male presence, they’re begging the rich eligible bachelors Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley (Matthew Macfadyen and Simon Woods) to throw a ball so they can “meet people.” Other humorous characters include the middle sister Mary Bennet (Talulah Riley) who, unlike Lydia and Kitty, dresses in dark colors and hates the idea of balls as a way to meet people. Then there’s the “dreaded cousin” Mr. Collins.

Wright does Austen justice is recounting the gravity of marriage to women in an era where only male descendants were allowed to inherit. Mr. Collins (Tom Hollander) a short, self-assured, clergyman with no common sense when speaking to women is the one to inherit the sister’s estate. In order to make this move smoother, the nerdy douche tries to wed Lizzie, after finding out the eldest and prettier sister Jane (Rosamund Pike) is practically taken. Collin’s way of proposing? “You should take into account, that despite your mannerful attractions it's by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made to you.” But Lizzie rejects in a very Gansta’ (despite what Urban Dictionary says, I know that “Gangsta’” can mean someone who defies normality, not for the simple sake of rebellion, but to question that which is incomprehensibly wrong; ie: “Did you see Gaby? She got a pixie cut against her Mexican mom’s will! She’s Gangsta!”) fashion, saying: “Sir, sir, I am not the sort of female to torment a respectable man. Please understand me I cannot accept you.”

It’s worth mentioning her father’s (Donald Sutherland) support of her decision, as well as her mother’s bitchy threats.

The whole issue of marriage is all the more demonstrated, however, with Lizzie’s beloved cousin Charlotte Lucas (Claudie Blakley). After Lizzie’s rejection, Charlotte feels compelled to settle for less with Collins, being that she is a whopping twenty-seven-year-old single lady. She tells Lizzie, Lizzie calls him “ridiculous,” but Charlotte states quite soberly: “Not all of us can afford to be romantic.”

The eldest sister Jane Bennet is the “beauty of the family,” as their mother puts it, and Lizzie’s closest sister. She catches the eye of the rich guy we mentioned above, the cheerful and likeable Mr. Bingley, at a ball where he along with his quizzical-browed best friend Mr. Darcy are the invited guests. We mentioned the charismatic characters Wright envisions and produced, but if we had to choose one actor/actress in the entire film whose character portrayal was perfect it was Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy--yes, above Knightley’s portrayal, but only slightly. He’s described as handsome in the novel, and he is indeed in the film, but not Abercrombie and Fitch-esque the way we’re used to seeing in teenage romantic films. The character of Darcy is opposite his best friend in personality and demeanor. As Bingley smiles and finds it easy to make conversation, Macfadyen as Darcy exhibits an excellent 19th century male version of The Resting Bitch Face and talks very little to Lizzie, the only person at the ball attempting to befriend him. Her attempts come to a halt when she overhears his remarks regarding her looks as “perfectly tolerable...but not handsome enough to tempt” him.

Throughout the film she runs into him in what seems to the audience as coincidentally. But she doesn't appear to blossom in her fondness of him as he seems to remain the bitter bitch we foremost met. That is, until we learn the valid reasons behind behaviours. Darcy doesn't change much, it is safe to say, but a different inner self does surface as he patches up certain mishaps and misunderstanding--semi-connected to Lizzie-- with the wealth and influence he has. Maybe romantic, maybe not?

It is an unconventional love story that doesn't feature a hopelessly romantic damsel in distress who is saved by a pretty boy. Lizzie pokes fun at love, not because she hates it, but because, as she puts it: “Only the deepest level of love could persuade me into matrimony, which is why I will end up an old maid.” Her outlook on love and marriage seems that she is open (i.e. how intrigued she seemed with proper pretty boy George Wickham [Rupert Friend]) to the idea, but isn't desperate to find a suitor nor does she become disheartened with Darcy’s grimness towards her. Instead she is slightly taken aback, her cousin Charlotte cheers her up, saying “count your blessings Lizzie. If he liked you, you’d have to talk to him,” as Lizzie reiterates “precisely. As it is I would not dance with him for all of Darbyshire, not even the miserable half (referring to how much of Derbyshire Darcy owns).”

Laughs.

The complexities of both He and Lizzie’s personalities ties into the title of the film, but you’d have to decide which is Prideful and which is Prejudice.