The movie remake of Pride and Prejudice was released in the US on November 18, which was big news for those of us concerned with all things Pemberley. If you’ve been living in a cave the last ten years, I’ll catch you up: you see, Mr. Darcy has once been made flesh in the form of Colin Firth in the iconic 1995 A&E adaptation, and the faithful can hardly admit the legitimacy of a second Mr. D, even if he is embodied by the rather delectable Matthew Macfadyen of “MI-5″ fame (”Spooks” to you in the UK). We have been waiting impatiently to evaluate this pretender to the throne.

I don’t want to be one of those Austenites who criticizes any adaptation that doesn’t adhere strictly to the book, so I’ll keep those thoughts to a minimum. I did enjoy the new P&P, although I don’t think Colin Firth is in any danger of being replaced as Mr. Darcy in the hearts and minds of P&P fans any time soon. I was eager to see Mr. Macfadyen’s performance, not only because I salivate over him as Tom in MI-5, but also because he did such an outstanding job as Felix in “The Way We Live Now,” the BBC adaptation of Trollope’s work. But he was sort of a cipher as Mr. Darcy. He wasn’t terrible; he just wasn’t enough of a presence. Maybe, in the scant two hours allotted to the story, he was simply off screen too much of the time to make an impression.

I also wasn’t crazy about Keira Knightley as Elizabeth. I’m not generally keen on her mannerisms anyway, but I did try to come to this performance with an open mind. I just felt she was a bit strident as Elizabeth. Jennifer Ehle, who was so wonderful in the A&E version, showed Elizabeth as tomboyish and opinionated, but yet a fully mature young woman. Knightley’s Elizabeth just seemed bratty and smart-mouthed. And her hair, Louisa! Miss K. was sporting some kind of…I don’t know…nape bangs that distracted me every time they showed the back of her up-do. Imagine cutting the very bottom layer of your hair right at your collar line, while leaving the top layers long, and then having the fringe peek out every time you put your hair up — that’s exactly what it looked like. I’m not sure if it was the style back then, or if the actress simply had her hair cut very short to accommodate a wig, but I can assure you I spent way too many minutes of the film considering it.

I’ll stop short of critiquing, as so many others have, the director’s decision to set many scenes out-of-doors and to show the grottier side of Regency living (pigs in the house, people in dishabille, and so forth). He had to do something to avoid making an exact replica of the A&E film, and I think it was a legitimate artistic choice, even if the result was more Bronte than Austen. (It did make me crave a really good adaptation of Wuthering Heights, though. Why have so many directors got it wrong?)

I also liked the toned-down supporting characters who were still every bit as funny as the broader A&E caricatures, thanks to the retention of Austen’s sparkling dialogue. Actually, I could enjoy a Pride and Prejudice performed by a junior-high drama club and relocated to Studio 54 in the 1970’s if only the dialogue were preserved. The scene where Mr. Bennett twits his wife about her “nerves,” or Mr. Collins describes how he prepares little compliments to disperse at Rosings, or any of the proposal scenes — all worth the price of admission.

Which brings me to Good Night, and Good Luck, another theatrical release I actually got to see in a real live theater, thanks to my parents’ willingness to act as babysitters. It was so refreshingly different — the look, the subject matter, the performances — that I enjoyed it very much. (Some have taken issue with George Clooney’s view of history — here’s a pretty good article on Slate if you’re interested. It doesn’t change my mind about the film, though.) Like P&P, Good Night, and Good Luck took some of its “dialogue” from an existing text — in this case, transcripts of Edward R. Murrow’s speeches and broadcasts, as well as actual footage of Senator McCarthy’s hearings and other broadcasts. Something was bothering me throughout the film, and I finally put my finger on it: Edward R. Murrow was speaking to his audience in relatively complex language, not punchy sound bites. To follow the thread of his argument, you had to pay attention.

That makes two films in one week in which the characters spoke in complete sentences. Murrow said, “I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry’s program planners believe.” Maybe we are.