Forgotten Characters 2:1

Forgotten Characters was probably the lone lucid feature that I had on my blog, even if I’ve done nothing to reignite it recently. I’m still ignoring the overwhelming chatter of Oscar predictions that abound but what better way to incite Forgotten Characters fever than by looking at someone who’s probably getting a nomination come Tuesday. A favourite of mine last year:

             

Carey Mulligan in Pride & Prejudice

As Ms. Kitty Bennett

             

I’ve already waxed about my overwhelming affinity to Pride & Prejudice. I remarked that as far as the sisters go the show belongs completely to Ms. Knightley with Rosamund Pike as a worthy ally. The other sisters don’t get that much legwork, which of course is the reason for their forgotten status. Kitty is the youngest of the Bennett girls, most noted for being the ally of her sister Lydia, played by a pleasant Jena Malone [the fourth sister]. The film opens to the two chattering incessantly about the imminent Mr. Bingley. We see them as they shrieking anticipate the ball and along with their similarly vacuous mother go out to see the regiment marching, their own Elizabethan version of watching celebrities, I suppose.

Carey’s significant moment comes somewhere in the middle of the film, and is ridiculously silly. Lydia is offered the chance to go away for a Holiday and Kitty is both annoyed that she’s been denied a chance at this “adult” occasion and the thought of losing he rally. She descends into hysterics as Lydia maliciously chatters about the prospective experience. Carey is a good crier – as we saw in An Education – although here her crying needs to be definitively histrionic. It is. Hilariously so. Pride & Prejudice is the story of Elizabeth Bennett, not of the Bennett girls. However, Joe Wright crafts it all so beautifully that for some moment each of the girls gets their chance to shine. Nevertheless I still can’t think of Carey in it without remembering her and Jena Malone’s irrepressible giggling as Mr. Collins proposes to Eliza. And, I suppose, that’s how it should be.

                    

Can you remember Carey’s Kitty? Or was her Jenny her first impression on you?
          
FORGOTTEN CHARACTERS: Season One
Miranda Richardson in The Hours
Cate Blanchett in The Talented Mr. Ripley
Ethan Hawke in Training Day
Marilyn Monroe in All About Eve
Sean Bean in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

John Castle in The Lion in Winter
Waylon Payne in Walk the Line