I'm less annoyed about the P&P movie softening Mrs. Bennett b/c it feels like she was still kind of a nightmare, socially speaking, but you could see the underlying issues. She knew damn well how fine of a line they were walking, with 5 girls and the entail. Plus, I always wonder how much of that nastiness comes from the sort of snobbishness inherent in Jane's class--because she *wasn't* from that class; she married up, so automatically she's a social climber and thus lesser, and I feel like the miniseries didn't really subvert that attitude, just leaned into it with a sort of nasty glee.

Mr. B, though... in the movie, he's sort of absent-minded but still fond, except good grief, he basically just throws up his hands & abandons his flighty daughter to ruin (and really doesn't acknowledge what it means to the other girls either.) No wonder Mrs. B has taken to her bed! They're ruined. All of her girls. And she has some possibly overly dramatic, but probably not by much, fears of how their lives have just been circumscribed.

I mean, yes, Mr. B does go off after Lydia/Wickham, but it's sort of a pathetic attempt, one that he seems to mostly be relying on his b-i-l to deal with. I remember having this conversation with two different AP Brit Lit groups (as the oldest and youngest went through the class, 7 years apart) but neither teacher really got them to understand just what a monumental thing it was that Darcy got Wickham to marry Lydia. (Also, how much money he threw at W to make that happen.)

But yes, S&S was just so well done! I always forget that Hugh Laurie is in it and then he's grumbling behind his paper and I wonder yet again, what on earth he thought he was doing, marrying Charlotte.

I'll have to see if I can find Northanger Abbey--I don't think I've ever seen an adaptation of that one.