TV review
Mary Bennet is the forgotten middle sister. The third of five daughters in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” she’s lonely (the two older and two younger sibs have paired up), less conventionally attractive than her sisters and, in Austen’s words, “had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached.” In other words, Mary’s a bit cringe, and the book has little interest in her, noting at the end that she remained unmarried and became her mother’s companion, happy to be “no longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters’ beauty and her own.”
But weep no more for Mary’s fate: She is now a heroine. The delightful new BBC series “The Other Bennet Sister,” based on the 2020 novel by Janice Hadlow and now streaming on BritBox, puts Mary (played superbly by Ella Bruccoleri) front and center, the star of her own story. Created by Sarah Quintrell, “The Other Bennet Sister” begins with what we know from “Pride and Prejudice”: the five unmarried sisters, led by lovely Jane (Maddie Close) and clever Elizabeth (Poppy Gilbert); the ball at Netherfield Park; the arrival of new neighbor Mr. Darcy (Victor Pilard) and awkward curate Mr. Collins (Ryan Sampson). But by the third episode, things have spun off: Mary, eager to shake free of her domineering mother (Ruth Jones), begins a new life with relatives in London — one that includes an up-and-down love story, and a perfect happy ending.
Told in 10 half-hour installments, each with its own charming cliffhanger, the series is both wickedly funny (Mary is a bit of a Regency-era Bridget Jones, with a tendency to awkwardly overshare) and genuinely moving. In a change from many adaptations of “Pride and Prejudice,” Mrs. Bennet isn’t just a well-meaning schemer but something of a monster, and you see how Mary suffers from feeling unloved. (Jones finds a wonderful balance between comedy — Mrs. Bennet’s “nervous complaints” are legendary — and cruelty, and has a deft hand with lines like “I cannot pass the man around the family like a sherry trifle.”) There are plenty of nods to the cinematic Austenverse, including the obligatory wet-shirt scene (times two!), but mostly the joy in “The Other Bennet Sister” comes from watching Mary slowly realize that she’s responsible for her own happiness, and that it’s right there waiting for her. Excuse me while I go watch this entire series again; it’s pure pleasure.
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