NETFLIX RELEASES FIRST PRIDE AND PREJUDICE TRAILER

Netflix has released the first trailer for its adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Jack Lowden plays Mr Darcy, Emma Corrin plays Elizabeth Bennet and Olivia Colman plays Mrs Bennet. The preview opens with Elizabeth and her sister Jane, played by Freya Mavor, on the roof of Longbourn. Elizabeth considers whether she will become a governess and spinster or a wife and mother. Colman’s Mrs Bennet recites the novel’s opening line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

Louis Partridge plays Mr Wickham and Jamie Demetriou plays Mr Collins, while Fiona Shaw also appears in the preview. The footage includes Pemberley. Austen’s novel first appeared in 1813. A six-part television adaptation in 1995 starred Colin Firth as Mr Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet. Dolly Alderton wrote Netflix’s adaptation; she also wrote the memoir Everything I Know About Love, which later became a BBC series.

Alderton said she gave the novel’s opening sentence to Mrs Bennet “because it’s the central drama of her story”. She said Mrs Bennet views the arrival of a wealthy single man as a possible source of security for all her daughters. Alderton identified family embarrassment, concern for children’s futures and the discomfort of misjudging someone among the story’s themes. She said those emotions remain relevant to audiences. Netflix plans to release the series in December.