Before the Fall

I am 94 years old, born in 1923. In 1938, at the age of 15, I entered a major Ivy League university, graduating in 1941, something of a record at that time. On December 11, 1941, at 18 years of age, I joined the U.S. Navy because I was angry about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Because of my talent, education, personal ambition, and considerable political pull, I received a commission in the U.S. Navy, being assigned to Naval Intelligence. World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and thereafter saw me retire at the rank of Naval Captain. Through it all, twice I was shot up pretty good, and twice I was told by doctors -- in effect -- that I was a hard man to kill, followed of course by what we would now call PTSD and very bad memories, but not to forget those endlessly repeated very bad dreams experienced to this day.

The good news is that you seldom find a senior career intelligence officer and combat ship captain in retirement who is poor. The skills, experience, knowledge and insights acquired, and priceless personal contacts thereby garnered frequently transfer favorably to the world of business.

Which brings me to "Before the Fall" (2016), written and directed by Byrum Geisler.

Ah yes, my marriage. Strip away the time frame, the civilian dress, the historical peculiarities, and especially the lack of reference to war, to killing, and to the absence of marshal mayhem generally and the eventually righted miscarriage of UCMJ justice that I personally engineered out of a sense of simple justice and out of my passionate, my absolute consuming interest in the object of my desire, you will find the accurate beginning of the latticework of my life-long love affair, who unhappily died before I did.

The clown responsible for the UCMJ miscarriage of justice was eventually keelhauled by the Navy in a fashion similar to the tender mercies of the Virginia state bar as described in "Before the Fall". To my complete satisfaction.

I salute Mr. Geisler and his crew and staff for their subtle and sophisticated rendering of a slice of life drawn, in my opinion, and especially in my experience from real life, gay or straight.

Or gay AND straight, because from this movie, both apply.

Parenthetically, the cinematography is excellent.

I give this fine movie an IMDb rating of 7.0.

First time I found out that people had already made a gay themed Pride and Prejudice I was instantly hooked. The whole P&P gay thing was my idea for a novel that I'm working on (in my head), although hadn't had the time to start on it.

I've always been a Pride and Prejudice fan. It's the first book in the Austenverse that I've read as a kid. I've fallen in love with the characters especially with the main lead Lizzie Bennet. Mr. Darcy, of course, will always be my fictional boyfriend. I have always identified myself with Elizabeth ever since I've read the novel and watched the 1995 and 2005 version, including the rom-com version, Bridget Jones' Diary.

Okay... so about this movie; I am both impressed and disappointed. Let me start off first by saying the "good" stuff about the film. The cinematography is visually stunning. The nature scenes are breathtaking and gorgeous to look at, it felt like you could almost feel and smell the breezy wind right through you, giving that vibe to the audience is an achievement. The storyline's good although it lacked the certain qualities of Austen's novel such as the social satire and wit that made the novel a universal hit. But I'm aware the director (Geisner) is not going for that direction, instead, he's focusing more on the romantic tension between Darcy and Lizzie and what could happen if they were transformed in the 21st Century as a same-sex couple. Darcy is as brooding as ever, in here he is depicted as a closeted gay man struggling to come in terms with his own identity, which is EXACTLY what he would look like if he were reinterpreted as a queer man.

As for my bad impressions, sad to say there are more bad moments than good but at least tolerable to bear with. My biggest complaint is the camerawork, it's often shaky here and there. Some angles were great, some angles were okay, some angles were just plain hard to look at. It looks as if it was done by a teenager with minimal knowledge about the basics of filmmaking. The dialogue was okay, but I expected more from it, it is after all an Austen adaptation so I expected it to have more depth and quality in the usage of their words. The two gay men, which are obviously the film's version of Lydia and Kitty, made me flinch in disgust; they're stereotypical and annoying (I get that their original counterparts really are annoying but I did not expect this kind of exasperation), I don't know if the writer of the screenplay intended them to be the comedic relief but it seemed they're just there to mess up the lives of everyone around them, they're like Jar Jar Binks twins in human flesh. Lastly, my second biggest complaint is the main lead, Ben Bennet. I don't see any hint of Lizzie in his character other than the "pride" and "prejudice" part which is obviously the most vital part of the story. He lacks charm, humour, liveliness, and (most importantly) sarcasm. My insult to his character: he resembles more of a Bella Swan than a vivacious woman with a pair of fine eyes.

If this wasn't a Pride and Prejudice film, I would've said more nasty stuff about it, my Austen spirit led to forgive it as a whole. I'm used to watching great films and I've seen far better LGBT themed movies than this, but set aside all the flaws and imperfections, I think it's a good film (if not a great one), it is imperative proof that beloved classics like Pride and Prejudice could be "queerified" if done with justice and regard to the original source.

Before the Fall is bad in every way. Terrible screenplay, terrible direction, terrible acting. Even the potentially beautiful Appalachian Mountains setting (which state it's supposed to be is debatable, but the mountains are not) is ruined by the overwhelming STUPIDITY of everything else. I mean, what lawyer conducts a confidential interview, discussing a third person in a way that would qualify as slander anywhere on earth, in the public hallway of his office, directly in front of the waiting room door, for anybody who may be waiting there to hear?

The whole movie is like that: stupid people saying and doing unvaryingly stupid things in the most unrealistic, unbelievable way possible. And there's an extremely annoying, cloying synthesizer-piano muzak soundtrack, the same dull, soporific notes played over and over, oozing its sappy way through every scene, constantly underlining the unrelenting stupidity of everything we see and hear.

I HATE this movie! The guy who plays Lee is gorgeous -- and I mean breathtaking -- but, just like the mountains, his beauty is buried in the mudslide of stupidity that swallows everything in its path.

Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen's best work by far, one of the finest and most deeply satisfying novels ever written. It's so good that it has survived many bad adaptations, including this one. But writer-director Byrum Geisler (whoever he is) really shouldn't have told anybody what he was trying to do, because his failure is so monumental that he SHOULD be too embarrassed now to show his face anywhere. There is no HINT of Pride and Prejudice, or any of its marvelous characters, STILL alive 200 years after she created them -- not the tiniest spark of Austen's genius -- anywhere in this stupid movie.

This film is based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and it borrows quite a bit from its source, but it is very much its own story. The differences are enough to allow it to be judged on its own. The gorgeous Virginia and Great Smoky mountain scenery only enhance the beauty of the film. The characters are believable in their flawed reality. There is comic relief at times, even campy silliness with a couple characters, but they really don't detract from the poignant plot progression. These people feel very real, perhaps even like people we know. Yes, all of them; the main characters, the friends, the girlfriends. Most of us know people like this, might want to step into the story and have a stern talk with them (or more). The slow pace may put off some viewers who would be impatient for the story to move along, for the characters to just "get over themselves." Let them be. They will work it all out the best way they can.

In case you were wondering how the title related to Pride and Prejudice, "Before the fall" is from Proverbs in the Bible. That should have been obvious to me, but I had to look it up. I knew the proverb, and I knew Pride and Prejudice, but I didn't make the connection.

That's because this reinterpretation has turned Jane Austen's characters upside down. D'Arcy and Bingley are poor, not rich, and (characters equivalent to) the Bennett sisters are concerned about marrying beneath their status rather than above.

That's clever, and one of the few reinterpretations of Pride & Prejudice that's not a poor imitation, it's completely different. Pride & Prejudice is a social satire, and a comedy of manners. This film, on the other hand, isn't funny. There is a little comic relief, but it's feeble and the film would have been better without it.

By no means is the dialog scintillating, and some plot devices are pretty weak (though probably no less contrived than Austen's). I personally was annoyed by the maudlin piano soundtrack in scenes where it was not only unnecessary, it was distracting.

There are additional flaws that one could complain about, but overall I found myself able to overlook them. There is a lot to admire here, and it easily drew me in. I'd say give it a chance, especially if you are a fan of Jane Austen.