It’s enduring appeal and universal themes have encouraged many a novelist and moviemaker to update the story for modern audiences. Here are some recent examples:
- ► The 2003 movie Pride and Prejudice: A Later Day Comedy was Andrew Black’s effort to update Pride and Prejudice to the modern American college scene. Elizabeth Bennet is a serious student and aspiring novelist, who must choose between the charming Wickham and of course Darcy, who in this version is an aloof businessman.
- ► Also in 2004 Gurinder Chadha made Bride and Prejudice, a movie which attempted to fuse Jane Austen, Bollywood and western cinema. Set in contemporary India, London and Los Angeles, the story followed Lalita, a middle-class Indian girl, and her romance with William Darcy, a fabulously wealthy American hotelier. Read our review of Bride and Prejudice here.
- ► In 2009 Belinda Roberts wrote Prawn and Prejudice, which sadly isn’t about the protracted courting process of various cute underwater creatures. Instead, it’s a Pride and Prejudice update set in modern-day Salcombe, a fashionable seaside town in Devon, England.
So all this has got Mr. Darcy and I thinking about other possibilities for updates. This is, (I’m afraid!) the best idea we’ve come up with. With sincerest apologies to Jane Austen, here is ‘Proudfellas: Wiseguys and Prejudice,’ a movie that fuses Cosa Nostra clichés with classical literature in a way that should never be allowed to become reality!
Mr. Benneti is a low-ranking Sicilian-American mobster living in Brooklyn, New York. He’s a ‘made’ guy, but his lack of connections and his marriage to a woman from an Albanian crime family has left him out of favor with the top bosses. Mrs Benneti, keen to see her five daughters avoid the humiliation of working for a living, is desperate to find advantageous marriages for all of them. She believes it to be a truth universally acknowledged that a single mobster in possession of at least six hits under his belt, will be in want of a wife.
Her prayers seem to be answered when wealthy Cosa Nostra crime figures, Vito Darciano and Charles Bada-Bingley, come to New York from their home in Sicily. Darciano apparently owns most of the garbage routes, pizza parlors and waste disposal centers on the island, but his proud manner quickly alienates the locals, and he refuses to dance with Elizabeth when they meet in a popular New York club. Bada-Bingley, by contrast, quickly falls for Janice Benneti, the most beautiful of the Benneti daughters.
Mr. Benneti receives an unexpected email from Colin ‘The Reverend,’ an Irish-Italian Mafia accountant with the happy fortune to have endeared himself to Lady Catherine ‘The Butcher.’ The fearsome Lady Catherine is serving as custodian of a vast Milanese crime empire while her husband completes a 15 year prison sentence. (The Reverend is an obscure relation of the Bennetis, and found them via ‘Genes Reunited.’) He is keen to mend bridges after a clan feud that wiped out one third of each family in the 1970s, and is also looking for a wife who knows ‘the business’ and can therefore keep her mouth shut. Elizabeth’s answer to The Reverend’s proposal was a short, sharp “forget about it!” so the Reverend has to settle for another, plainer alternative.
Elizabeth’s distaste for Darciano grows when Mr. Wickham, a local ‘soldier’ (code for a low-ranking, but connected street hustler) tells her that Darciano had previously mistreated him. Darciano’s father had apparently wanted to train Wickham for the role of mob lawyer. However, on his passing, his son withdrew all funds from Wickham and even tried to have him whacked. However, later it transpired that Wickham had actually been blackmailing Darciano, threatening to ‘rat him out’ to the authorities. Elizabeth therefore agreed that Darciano had every right to leave Wickham sleeping with the fishes. Nevertheless, she was impressed that Darciano showed mercy on his father’s young friend and banished him to the United States instead.
To cut a long story short, Elizabeth and Darciano fall in love and marry, as do Bada-Bingley and Janice. Lydia and Wickham elope and join a witness protection program, but luckily they have no significant information to trouble the family. Lady Catherine’s annoyance at the marriage is such that it sparks a mob war between the Darciano family and The Butcher’s syndicate. It’s all over quite quickly, however, and after a few car bombs and strategically-placed horse heads, everything is forgiven.
I’m sure you can do better so please post your ideas for Pride and Prejudice movie updates. Can’t wait to read them!
A friend o’ yours
Lizzy Benneti
