Conventional wisdom has it that the runaway hit Pride and Prejudice, created for the BBC in 1995, will never be surpassed. In this stately retelling, Susannah Harker's Jane represents femininity itself, at once pliant and untouchable; Jennifer Ehle's Lizzy keeps her sass bundled up behind gracious, toothless smiles. A plot involving the titular faults is buried in there somewhere, but the filmmakers really turn up the volume on Jane Austen's social satire. There's the ear-splitting hysteria of the girls' mother (Alison Steadman, a Mike Leigh protégée); the ludicrous piety of middle sister Mary (Lucy Briers, conspicuously sans makeup); the ugly-stepsister severity of Miss Bingley (Anna Chancellor), played as though snobbery and evil were synonymous. Among the men, hunky hunk Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth) can claim scarcely more complexity than greasy sycophant Mr. Collins (David Bamber).

A miniseries is forced to telegraph its characterizations, because while blessed with ample time, it can't claim the luxury of sustained attention. Watching the DVDs in a single unnatural binge, the overemphasis can get tiring. It's not so much a faithful adaptation as a faithful illustration, every narrative jab repurposed for caricature. Exaggeration has its pleasures, of course, but Pride and Prejudice gets its loveliest jolts from a quality suspiciously close to camp. (Wet poet's shirt, anyone?)

In some ways, the newer Pride & Prejudice is pitched even higher than its predecessor. The dramatic sweep of Romanticism arches backward into what is essentially a late 18th-century story (director Joe Wright set his version in 1796, the date of composition, not its 1813 publication). There's not a little Brontë at the stone ruin where a sopping wet Keira Knightley, as Lizzy, refuses Darcy's first marriage proposal; and the plentiful zooms and close-ups are sexually charged.

But in its characterizations, Pride & Prejudice is positively subtle. Brenda Blethyn, another Mike Leigh regular, makes Mrs. Bennet's mania for marriage seem sympathetic, if not downright reasonable. (Production designer Sarah Greenwood assists by illustrating the economic reality that will boot any unmarried Bennet sister out of the gentry.) This time around, Mary (Talulah Riley) isn't repulsive; she's just a milk-fed moralist who can't find her social footing. Even Darcy gets a bit of a break: Matthew Macfadyen plays up a shyness that, combined with obscene wealth, could come off as pride. Great acting damages some characters (Judi Dench isn't sufficiently petty to play Lady Catherine), but generally, the film's realism beautifully grounds its love story.

The extras in these DVDs are half-assed (P&P inexcusably omits the less-sappy alternate ending that was used in the British theatrical release; P and P sports a DVD case that looks like a children's chewable book). But they're both essential versions of a thrillingly adaptable novel.