Ageless Austen

"One knows exactly what to think," exclaims Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. She doesn't, of course: Jane Austen's novel (originally entitled First Impressions) addresses the evils of jumping to conclusions, and it should be taken to heart by any reviewer, whether of Austen's writing itself or subsequent film and TV adaptations. But in truth I found much to like about this new A&E/BBC co-production after one viewing, and little to object to after a second. If you didn't catch it when it aired two weeks ago, you'll have another chance this weekend.

Austen is in the ascent these days. Clueless (based on Emma) was a moderate success in movie theaters last summer; Persuasion appeared in October and is still playing in Boston; Sense and Sensibility is a hit at the box office and has Oscar potential; Emma is expected out soon. Now a new version of Pride and Prejudice arrives on the small screen, to join the 1940 Hollywood effort (with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier) and the BBC's previous adaptation, in 1985. Last month Entertainment Weekly named Austen one of the 10 hottest artists around. Somewhere a network TV-movie exec is probably saying, "Forget Danielle Steel, we're doing Mansfield Park."

It's not hard to see why Jane Austen is in again. As we find out more and more about our world and discover that we know less and less, we're reminded that, writing some 180 years ago, she was way ahead of her time. The theme of her novels is that we never know other people as well as we think, that they're never as much like us as we suppose. In a way, these are mystery stories: if we pay close attention to the clues Austen leaves, we can learn a little something about the human heart. Which is comforting in a universe that seems to afford increasingly few answers.

Pride and Prejudice is the most popular of Austen's novels because it offers us the most evidence. Sense and Sensibility locks us into the sensibility of Elinor Dashwood; most of what we know about Edward Ferrars is filtered through her. Same for Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth in Persuasion. By giving us Darcy and Wickham in their own words, Pride and Prejudice lets us play detective along with Elizabeth and her sister Jane; we get to compare our conclusions about the gentlemen's merits with theirs.

This objectivity also makes P&P an ideal book for the screen. Despite drawing its ideas of period detail from Gone with the Wind, and adding a carriage race and an archery lesson, the Hollywood film packs a lot of Austen into its two hours. Greer Garson is a forward, mostly winning Elizabeth (think Katharine Hepburn but sweeter); Laurence Olivier is stiff but effective as a Heathcliff-like Darcy; Edward Ashley is an enticing Errol Flynn of a Wickham. The 1985 BBC effort -- screenplay by Fay Weldon -- looks to have been shot on TV sets (To the Manor Born?); it's a sedate, thoughtful production with a somewhat vinegary Elizabeth (Elizabeth Garvie), a lovely and intelligent Jane (Sabina Franklyn), a lovelier-and-more-intelligent-than-she-should-be Charlotte Lucas (Irene Richard), and even an occasionally sympathetic Mrs. Bennet (Priscilla Morgan).

The new BBC version is a tad longer -- 270 minutes (after you subtract the hour and a half of commercial time) as against 226 -- and a tad better in almost every way. Susannah Harker's Jane makes an odd, almost bovine first impression, as if she were trying to hide her intelligence from Bingley, and I can't say she improved on further acquaintance. (On the rare occasion she lets her hair down, she looks leagues smarter.) And some may find Alison Steadman's Mrs. Bennet a shade over the top. As Elizabeth, Jennifer Ehle also makes a dull first impression, but she grows more radiant by the hour, improving with us as she does with Darcy; and Colin Firth's shy, almost-childlike Darcy is the best ever.

Just about everything else here is first-rate too, from Adrian Lukis's Wickham (so sincere, so honorable, you wonder whether he's not the good guy) and Benjamin Whitrow's Father Knows Best-like Mr. Bennet to Crispin Bonham Carter's puppyish Bingley and Julia Sawalha's squeakily seductive Lydia. The sets -- real, as opposed to the TV kind -- do Jane credit, as does director Simon Langton, who gives his actors time for those essential half-pauses; he also opens up the novel discreetly (at Rosings Darcy looks out a window and sees Elizabeth playing with a dog; he almost smiles). Welcome to the Age of Austen.