Natalie Portman to kick some undead ass in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

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Natalie Portman to kick some undead ass in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

POSTED: Friday, December 11, 2009, 5:15 PM

Filed Under: Movies Books

Natalie Portman, everyone's favorite vegan child assassin, is attached to star and produce in the adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, according to Variety. Published by Philly-based Quirk Books (who got an honorable mention in our Big Vision issue) and written by Seth Grahame-Smith, Pride has already spawned the sequel Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and the upcoming prequel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadful. Lauren Fleming reviewed the book for our March Book Quarterly. Here's what she said:

Pride and Prejudice is arguably one of the best love stories ever written; by many readers' standards, impossible to improve upon ' that is, unless zombies are added. Seth Grahame-Smith reanimates Jane Austen's classic by adding elements of gore, death, cannibalism, war, ninjas and combat to make a perfect story even "perfecter." By delicately weaving carnage into the original text, Grahame-Smith enables readers to view characters in a new, ass-kicking light. Even the most mundane passages of Pride and Prejudice become wildly entertaining as zombies are beheaded by delicate ladies in formal attire, causing onlookers to politely vomit. Enhanced by 20 bloody, old-timey illustrations, this novel is flawlessly executed with the prowess of a skilled ninja whose well-spent hours in the dojo have enabled him to perfect the craft of deadly novel writing.

Over at MTV's movie blog, Adam Rosenberg says a film adaptation will ruin the book, writing "The risk here is that we'll end up with nothing more than a period zombie flick." But what's the problem with that? Zombies are modern movie phenomena, often in place to symbolize society's current social ills. Take Zombieland which used its undead supporting players as a stand in for our lack of personal contact and highlight the importance of personal relationships. Also: zombie boobs. I may be wrong here (please lemme know in the comments if I am!) but I've never seen a period zombie movie and considering all the sequels and remakes in theaters, any idea with a modicum of originality is pretty fucking sweet.

Portman's involvement only helps the movie's cause. I have enough faith in NatPo to believe she won't make something shitty, especially because she's at a nice high point in her career. She's carving out a niche for her production shingle handsomecharlie and she doesn't need to take on as much crap as a lot of actresses her age. This year saw her directorial debut in anthology film New York I Love You, which I didn't like overall but enjoyed her segment about a dancer father and his young daughter. She can currently be seen in theaters in Jim Sheridan's Brothers, and even though I've spent this paragraph defending Portman's involvement, I still didn't like:

Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his sister-in-law, Grace (Natalie Portman), sit together, sharing a spliff and their high school infatuation with U2's "Bad." It's a bombastic song, and much like the rest of U2's esteemed catalog, contains little subtlety, not unlike Brothers itself. Tommy is the red-headed stepchild of the Cahill family, sent to prison for a bank robbery and assault. He's released just as his older brother Sam (Tobey Maguire), a captain in the Marines, is shipping out to Afghanistan. But when Sam is shot down and taken prisoner, Tommy begins to fill Sam's role as father to his two young nieces (comic relief in the form of Bailee Madison and Taylor Geare) and confidant to Grace. Just as Tommy gains a sense of purpose, Sam loses his. Based on Susanne Bier's Danish film, Jim Sheridan's adaptation is faithful to the plot while betraying its visceral spirit. Where Bier's film was driven by raw emotion ' fear, anger ' Sheridan's comes off like a polished, knock-off purse: It looks OK but it's nothing like the real thing.

James E.

Posted 2009-12-11 13:16:18

Natalie Portman made the awesome switch to vegetarianism over 20 years ago. You can too by getting free information and recipes at vegstarterpack.com!

Posted by Molly Eichel @ 5:15 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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