My favourite scene in Pride and Prejudice (the novel because I’ve never watched the movies) is the one where, and I’ll paraphrase, this happens:

Mr Darcy: Hey, your family is whack, and I’m your superior in class, but I love you. Marry me?
Elizabeth:

The reason that this is my favourite scene is because it’s one of the climaxes in their relationship, and the way it was handled absolutely EXHILARATED me. The fact that Elizabeth took the confession and totally reamed him, and then his response, was one of the saddest most intense and instant karma confessions I have ever read.

I’ve re-read this scene quite a bit to relive the thrill. It was one of the first times I’d read a romance where the female lead said “you know what? No. You’re being an a**hole”. But I’d never watched the movies. I’ve held onto my old belief that they’ll be boring or tremendously cringy. It’s easier reading people doing frustrating things than watching … although Elizabeth’s mother had me wanting to put my fist through the screen.

So, back to my main point; this scene (in the 2005 movie) popped up on my Facebook feed as a sponsored post from Netflix. Usually, I’ll quickly scroll past as I don’t want to see how they look like in a movie and retain my impression of them from the book (I really only do this with novels that I don’t want to watch the movie adaptation of), but Facebook has autoplay and, though it doesn’t play with sound, I had a feeling I knew the scene. And so I paused my other video and turned on the volume.

Listening to and watching it happen was definitely another experience, and I think it was done pretty well, at least in capturing Elizabeth’s counter and Mr Darcy’s shock and sadness at the rejection. This proposal is weird for me because I think it’s my favourite fictional proposal, despite being one of the worst proposals I’ve ever read a fictional character do. Mr Darcy no! Watching him fold in on himself and her tear into him was great.

And that’s all I came to say.

Oh yeah, Happy New Year.