Jane Austen for the ages: BEFORE THE FALL
Filmmaker Byrum Geisler, interviewed after the film's showing at the 2016 Virginia Film Festival, noted that he was inspired to portray all of Pride and Prejudice "backwards," and indeed he does. The most remarkable difference between the two works would be the change in focus from feminism to sexuality. While staying true to Austen's general storyline, the alterations in characterization and relationships make Geisler's film fresh and innovative.
In this most creative millennial version, Darcy is a poor "real" man who seems confused vis-à-vis his sexuality, and unable to admit his gayness —although pairing him up with a woman whose character simultaneously embodies both Lady Catherine and Caroline Bingley, two of Jane Austen's most hated characters, is enough to send any man looking for alternative love interests. Bingley too is a man who lives close to the earth, and is not particularly well off: a startling depiction of the man who, in Austen's Pride & Prejudice, was sought after by many for his incredible affluence. In another socioeconomic class reversal, the Bennetts in Before the Fall are relatively prosperous, and the older Bennett brother counsels his sister Jane against pairing her future with a man of such uncertain prospects as Bingley.
Although there are major changes to Jane Austen's original plot of Pride & Prejudice in Geisler's film adaptation, Before the Fall can still be considered an accurate rendition because it maintains distinguishing elements of Austen's writing. One of the most distinctive parts of an Austen novel is the surprising number of walks the characters take in the gardens. These walks mimic the slow pace of life in England's high society and demonstrate the changing social relationships as different couples pair up and walk off by themselves. Geisler reminds us of these walks when he updates a walk in the garden to a hike in rural Virginia. The cinematography in this film is beautiful, as the mountains of Virginia provide a stunning backdrop for the various hikes the characters go upon. Just as Mr. Bingley and Jane Bennett's relationship develops on walks throughout Pride & Prejudice, Chuck Bingley and Jane Gardiner have their most romantic scene on a hike.
Additionally, this film places a large emphasis on the influence of one's family on an individual, for better or for worse. Darcy is emotionally damaged and in denial of his sexuality as the result of the relationship with his estranged father, who was shown in a flashback walking into a truck stop restroom. Similarly, Jane is fiercely loyal to her brother, and willing to end her relationship with Bingley per his advice. The Wickham-like lawyer of questionable morality, whom Ben Bennett dates briefly, is incapable of abandoning his wife and children despite being gay. All of these ways the characters ardently take into account their family's values and wishes are reminiscent of Pride & Prejudice, which includes many scenes depicting the entire Bennett family in a single room and characters blindly following the advice of relatives instead of their own hearts.
In general, fans of the novel find themselves awash in a sea of contradictory characters and situations, a chimeric scope which seems to turn the novel, its characters, and its situations inside out. This works to create a new experience of the familiar work.
What perhaps does not work so well is its didacticism. Social commentary, unlike in Jane Austen's more subtle voice, is nothing if not overt, as Kittner and Lyle lecture Cathy about her own not-so-subtle biases against gay romances. The lectures seem out of place in a fictional work.
Before the Fall comments on how gayness is the same kind of social taboo as marrying someone from a different class in nineteenth century England, but it also comments on the perception of more feminine gay men, who face a stronger prejudice and cannot hide their sexuality.
Given the plethora of adaptations of Austen's most popular novel, Geisler and his crew are to be commended for the attempt to adapt in a new direction. And in large part, they succeed. Before the Fall is unique amongst the crowded world of Pride and Prejudice film and theatre versions in featuring gay protagonists and an impoverished though hot Darcy. My students who watched a pre-release version of the film found the heterosexual Bingley even hotter. Perhaps this film presages a new world of films featuring hot gay and straight characters together, in a world more seamless than the one we now inhabit.
by Andrea Press
