Some of the best movies don’t start from the big screen, but from the paper pages of a book. Luckily, because of this, we were blessed with the most outstanding romance movies of all time: Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, and The Notebook. All of these movies come from their own pieces of literature. And to be portrayed on screen, these novels must have been pretty outstanding, and their movies did not fall far behind.
Pride and Prejudice is a 2005 romantic film directed by Joe Wright and based on Jane Austen’s 1813 novel of the same name. The film is based on an English family in the late 1800’s with 5 sisters who deal with issues of marriage. The film focuses on the protagonist Elizabeth Bennet (Keira Knightley) and a wealthy man, Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), and their trials of falling in love. The 2004 romantic drama, The Notebook, is a film directed by Nick Cassavetes and based on Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 novel. It takes place in the 1940s with a young couple played by Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, and shows their tale of falling in love. Their story is told by an old man who shares the narrative with another elderly woman in their nursing home. Little Women is a 2019 romantic drama film written and directed by Greta Gerwig and also 1 of 7 films based on the 1868 novel by Louisa May Alcott. It is based on 4 sisters (Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, and Eliza Scanlen) living in Concord, Massachusetts, in the 19th century. The film shows the lives of these sisters and their different journeys in death, marriage, writing, and falling in love.
The actors in the film Pride and Prejudice do a wonderful job making the audience feel their love for each other and pain they feel when they are apart, which makes the movie feel extremely realistic. This acting grabs the audience’s attention and keeps them interested in the film all the way through the end. Though the film is set in the 18th century, it still has a modern feel to it because of the actors’ costumes and hair styles.
The acting in The Notebook between Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams drove the film to its success. The chemistry they have with one another and the unique acting styles they bring to the set, helps the watchers understand the complex feelings of love, pain, and disbelief. However, some say that the plot adjustments and the runtime of the film do not fully cover the depth of the novel. This, unfortunately, leads to a loss of theme and soul in the movie, which the original novel greatly portrays.
Little Women has a wonderful cast, full of many well-known actors and actresses including: Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep, and Christian Bale. Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet have strong performances in this film, continuing the chemistry that they had built in their prior films together. Greta Gerwig’s ending of the film is significantly different from Louisa May Alcott’s book ending. One focuses on the old fashion idea of prioritizing marriage, while the other is a more modern approach promoting women’s success.
Each film brings out its own charm, emotion, and visual beauty to the stories it represents. They capture the heart of their budding romances in ways that will never be forgotten. If you have not yet experienced these stories, do yourself a favor and go watch them for yourself.