About six months ago, I moved across the country, away from my hometown and into my current apartment with my partner. I've got a big family and I'm not the best at keeping in contact with people, so I decided to gamify it into a project. I build a "movie monthly" email chain, where we would roll the dice on a movie every month and watch something together. Most of them aren't actually watching it, but this is the best way I can think of to keep track of 28 family members.

So this month, the dice rolled Pride and Prejudice, a movie I've never seen and a book I was only familiar with in the abstract. Being a Succession fan, I decided the easiest thing to do would be to watch the 2005 version and call it a day.

Bear with me on this. Things kinda spiraled out of control.

2005’s Pride and Prejudice, starring Kiera Knightly and Matthew McFayden.

It’s pretty alright. Elizabeth is an attractive young bookworm, Mr. Darcy is a grim, sarcastic twerp. Nonetheless, from my broad understanding of the novel’s structure, it was hard not to feel a sort of… inevitability. Kiera Knightley is in her prime of her career and the movie knows it. Kiera’s Elizabeth feels invincible in an odd way. Above the struggles of her time. Her sarcastic quips feel mean in a way that I soon realized was actually supposed to be grand victories. Elizabeth is a bookworm in a culture with very specific expectations for women and with very little opportunity. It's a suffocating environment, but one that doesn’t seem to stifle Liz in the slightest. She’s Kiera Knightley, movie star, and she’ll always get her win in the end.

While researching the movie, I came across a fascinating analysis from Jen Camden of the Jane Austen Society of North America. "[T]he Focus Features adaptation also limits Elizabeth’s desire: she has no interest other than Darcy, no need to balance emotions with pragmatism (as Austen’s Elizabeth must when endeavoring to forget Wickham and realizing that Colonel Fitzwilliam must forget her). Instead, the Focus Features Elizabeth must confront the possibility that she is not Darcy’s only object of desire.” 1

Overall, it was hard not to feel that I wasn’t getting the “right” Pride and Prejudice experience.

So I kept going.

The 1995 BBC miniseries seems to be one of the most popular adaptations of the novel, and it's hard not to see why. While the 2005 version uses realistic imagery with romantic sensibilities, the BBC version often pairs romantic imagery with realistic sensibilities.

Where the miniseries excels for me is the focus on Elizabeth's development. She’s more obviously prone to biases, misunderstandings, and judgemental thoughts. Supporting characters are still as flawed as they were in the 1995 production, but you also get an impression for how Elizabeth’s stubborn nature can create problems all on her own. At the same time, she’s still an admirable, strong-willed protagonist. She’s sharp, intelligent, and always ready with the right kind of comment to turn the tide against her. She’s still growing and changing, but she’s incredibly endearing and entertaining to watch in her day-to-day life.

But there’s a specific tone in 1995’s version that finally made me seek out and read the original text. Something that every single parody never established, something that wasn’t present in the 2005 version, and something that really shook my entire perspective on the text as soon as I realized it. And soon afterwards, I had to finally read the book itself to confirm my suspicions.

Pride and Prejudice is really, really funny. On purpose.

Reading the original text itself makes this extremely clear almost instantly. Every parody of Pride and Prejudice I’ve ever seen includes some skewering of the opening text: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” No version I’ve ever seen ever mentioned the extremely funny following line: “This truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.”

Nearly every page contains some kind of social skewering of the established regency society. Lady Catherine’s arrogance is introduced with her claims that she’s such a musical expert, she would be the greatest musician in the world… if she had ever learned to play anything. Or Mr. Collins’ inability to realize a woman is turning down his proposal until she physically leaves the room. Or Mrs. Bennett’s constant self-contradictions with lines like “For my part, I am determined never to speak of it again to anybody. I told my sister Philips so the other day.” Mr. Darcy, presented to me through osmosis as an imperious, organized figure, getting so intimidated by Elizabeth’s presence that he apologizes for showing up in his own house. Characters are ridiculous, pompous, and trapped in their own egos or sense of status. And that’s intentional on Jane Austen’s part! Every imitator or supposed “deconstruction” of Austen’s work completely fails to get across that the original context has always been self-aware.

So, now that I had a better grasp of the original text, how far did deviations go?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies isn't very good. There is a core idea that almost works. High society’s obsession with appearance and prestige becomes particularly ridiculous when placed next to the existing zombie plague. The noble class inflicts greater abuses on the servants in order to maintain their increasingly unstable power. The absurdity is played completely straight, which I think speaks to a great comedic instinct on the filmmakers’ part.

But despite building a comedy action set-piece, this version doesn’t actually… do much with its premise. Several reviews claim there’s exciting subversions by having main characters get killed off early on and changing the narrative direction of the story. But that’s just not true. They dumped some action into the original dialogue and kind of called it a day. There’s more interesting experimentation to be done and I just don’t think this experiments with the formula as much as it could.

Fire Island places the Pride and Prejudice framework into, well, vacation destination Fire Island New York, as five gay friends try to enjoy what will likely be their final vacation at the destination. Noah, cynical bookworm, quickly clashes with Will, cynical lawyer. Regency era social conventions are transformed into modern identity issues: Will believes in looking professional as a gay man to fit into daily work life, Noah believes in defying norms and living however he likes. Mr. Wickham’s lying, manipulative ways are transformed into publicly posting about Stop Asian Hate, but privately having no interest in any politics and caring only about his own benefit.

I do think this is an incredible passion project, a purposeful sincere effort at telling a new story in an interesting way. There are things about the gay experience that hit me deep as a trans woman. Even so... its a cis gay man comedy with a lot of SNL guys. That writing kinda itches my brain a little. But there's more value in recognizing and appreciating where our experiences merge than casting insult to where they diverge. I would also cheer when I see Marisa Tomei. I'm not immune.

What Fire Island speaks to is just how universally translatable the text of Pride and Prejudice. Both have their pride. Both have their prejudices. Overcoming that and opening themselves up to romance is the central theme. And it just works. Pride, Prejudice, same ideas. Just a different context.

Finally, I decided to try one more variation in the Pride and Prejudice world. One more unique property that was required by its very nature to take different routes to tell its story.

Goddamn Video Games.

Matches and Matrimony gamifies the Bennett story into a a dating game, with the usual mechanics to be expected. Several personal traits, each things that will be impacted by different skill checks across the game. Willpower, Wit, Talent, Kindness, Propriety, and Sensibility. While the constraints around women is one of the core themes of the text, the gameplay can't help but shift a dynamic but putting the heat on the player to actively train Elizabeth (or my personal name choice: Jennifer's Body Starring Megan Fox) for a match. In many ways, the player is more like Mrs. Bennett than Elizabeth, forcing Liz to pick the “right” choices to impress the “right” suitor.

Right away, the balance of suitors and skill points is dramatically skewed. It is, in fact, impossible to progress into the game's half-way point without 64 in Willpower. Denying the three different proposals from Mr. Collins requires Willpower and you're locked in to the first ending unless you train Elizabeth's individuality.

Different variations shoot off from there. Training kindness catches Mr. Bingley's eye, leading to Elizabeth stealing Mr. Bingley from her sister. Elizabeth can accept Mr. Darcy’s first marriage proposal, allowing Darcy’s unchecked pride to accelerate. This ties into one of the other interesting mechanics of the game: the player will always be alerted to how a choice impacts society’s opinion of Elizabeth. Mr. Bingley’s affection, Mr. Collins’ exhausting interest, this is all an open book. The exception is Darcy himself. The game trusts that you know how the story pays out and expects that you can fill out each step to the letter. Elizabeth has never been privy to Darcy’s mind, so the player shouldn’t know how much he trusts Elizabeth either.

Perhaps most interesting is that the game also allows Elizabeth to marry two love interests from completely different Jane Austen books: Colonel Brandon from Sense and Sensibility or Captain Frederick Wentworth of Persuasion. I’m not as familiar with either of these books yet, but these side-options almost instantly muddle the writing. Elizabeth is dropped into these romances and immediately starts behaving like a different character, bemoaning a broken relationship with Wentworth that’s been completely unmentioned prior to now. You get the sense this game was built to educate children on Jane Austen’s texts, rather than reinterpret the texts too differently. Much of the dialogue is pulled right from the novels and it's reluctant to try anything that would paint the world in a new light. Which I think is a shame.

There's nine endings in all: Mrs. Collins, Mrs. Wickham, Mrs. Bingley, Miss Bennett (1) (lose Bingley's favor on his route), Mrs. Darcy (1), Mrs. Brandon, Mrs. Wentworth, Miss Bennett (2) (reject Wickham on his route), and Mrs. Darcy (2) (the original book's plot). I think its funny and appropriate that following the original story is actually the toughest ending to acquire. But I also think there's missed opportunities to expand the world more. Colonel Fitzwilliam or Mr. Denny, two different army men, are important side characters for the story's progression, but the game doesn't offer new insight. I suppose its just ultimately more profitable to focus development efforts on recognizable characters like Brandon and Wentworth, but if the dev team recentered on existing characters, I think there's a lot of new interesting things it could add to the conversation.

Its not a particularly advanced video game and its not even really trying to be. The balance is a bit all over the place and the original writing could use some significant polish. There's significant glitches in Ren'Py whenever the game transitions between scenes. But I still can't help but find it a fascinating little project. It sits on Big Fish Games website, with rave reviews from Austen fans like "LoveJane" from Norway or LadyOfTheIvy from Virginia, hidden between Viking Heroes 5 Collector's Edition and The Three Musketeers: Milady's Vengeance. Am I gonna be a dick to LoveJane from Norway? Of course not. I respect LoveJane from Norway. She's living a pure, honest life.

Matches and Matrimony, at its core, is a cute little edutainment game. Any discussion of quality or exciting gameplay has to get shelved for the central question: can it educate Pride and Prejudice newbies and/or delight hardcore fans.

I say yes, to both.

Now I just have to figure out how to describe this to 1) a bunch of 70 year olds and 2) find a working torrent of Death Comes to Pemberley, a Masterpiece Mystery.