The Rain Scene in Pride and Prejudice 2005

The 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie and its BBC 1995 TV predecessor make far more of the elements than Jane Austen ever did. More generally, Miss Austen didn’t give much to movie and TV producers to go on when planning their outdoor scenes. Not one for dwelling on scenery or skies, she was seemingly content to leave these details to the imagination. In her brilliantly concise words, it ‘rained hard’ on poor Jane Bennet on her ride to Netherfield, and there was some subsequent ‘dirty weather’ – that muddied Elizabeth’s petticoat as she walked to check on her sister. This is the high-point for the role of rain in Pride and Prejudice.

Indeed, the only other rain mentioned in Pride and Prejudice is that which prevents the Bennet girls from walking to Meryton for several days. This would have left the sisters in a ‘most pitiable state’ had they not the Netherfield ball to look forward to. That’s all we’re given, however, and why not? In real life, people who drone on about the weather and the chances of rain are considered insufferably dull, so why should novelists waste their words on such trivial matters?

These days we all seem to agree, however, that a drenched Mr. Darcy is sexier than a dry one, so something must be done. In the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice adaptation, screenwriter Andrew Davies chucked Mr. Darcy into a lake. In the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie, director Joe Wright opened the heavens on the poor fellow as he proposed to Elizabeth. In Lost in Austen, Amanda Price had a strangely ‘post-modern moment’ when she has her Darcy climb into a fountain.

Here, then, is the famous rain scene from Pride and Prejudice 2005.

Your drenched friend,
Lizzy