The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

I have quite a short attention span and a low tolerance for things that bore me. This may be why I am such a fan of web series. A short ten minute video isn't as time consuming as a 90min+ movie and you can cram in a whole series (or two) in an afternoon.

I stumbled across The Lizzie Bennet Diaries a few weeks ago and did just that. Now comes the waiting game as I eagerly anticipate new episodes twice a week. It is a modern, American retelling of Pride and Prejudice as a video blog of Lizzie Bennet, a graduate student still living at home with her crazy family including a mother who want to marry each of her three (poor Mary and Kitty) daughters off, her shy older sister and wild younger sister.

It seems like a tricky feat to take a novel with such a large cast and compress it into short videos that mostly take place in Lizzie's room with only four people ever being on screen. What the videos do so well is manage this transition with minimal "Uh, What?" inducing moments. For instance, it shouldn't work to have the girls dress up as Lizzie's parents and act out off screen conversations but it does and in a way it ties in with the themes of the novel where we see everything through Lizzie's eyes anyway.

Definitely one to keep watching.