A modern-day Elizabeth Bennett

Let me start out by saying that I should have read Pride & Prejudice in my 11th grade Advanced English class. However, at 16, I had "more important" things to worry about, so SparkNotes it was. My mother is a huge Jane Austen fan, though, so I grew up with the BBC miniseries playing in the background and thus caught the basic storyline.

I've always found it interesting when older stories are adapted into modern-day movies. This happens a lot with Shakespeare plays (10 Things I Hate About You, anyone?) It's always fun to see how much the original plotline shines through. This is actually the case with any book-turned-movie. Bridget Jones's Diary is no different.

I saw the movie before I read the book, so while I looked forward to and enjoyed reading the book, I was afraid what I had seen on screen would ruin any perceptions I had of Bridget in the book. That didn't turn out to be the case, though, and that leads me to wonder whether Renee Zellweger was right for the role of Bridget - for several reasons:

• despite what I thought when I first saw the movie (at an age when I thought a "good" actress was Hilary Duff, mind you), Renee is not, in fact, British. While she does a consistently better British accent than an untrained peon such as myself, I've heard better. Maybe they did this on purpose, though - perhaps the casting director thought casting an American as the role of Bridget would make more Americans want to see it. Who knows what runs through our heads?
• in the film, Bridget is a few dress sizes bigger than she was in the book. I have thought about this aspect probably more than anything else and I cannot seem to think of a good reason. Any suggestions would be great.
• she just doesn't look like the Bridget in the book. I could have beef with this because I saw a lot of parts of myself in book Bridget, so, even though I saw the movie before I read the book, I kind of wish the film Bridget...didn't look like Renee Zellweger. I'm sure she's a lovely woman, but, let's be real - Renee is blonde-haired, and blue-eyed, and on a normal day weighs significantly less than she did playing Bridget. I know it's a movie and it's pretend and blah blah blah, but I think it would have been nice to have a more relatable actress to play the role. But then, of course, maybe then they couldn't have cast Hugh Grant as Daniel and that would have been a huge problem...

I've been thinking about going back and trying to read Pride & Prejudice this summer, and all this talk about comparing the two has been the final push I need. So, if I gain nothing else from this class (unlikely), at least my mom will be elated I'm finally reading Jane Austen.