Editor’s Note: The following contains Fire Island spoilers.Jane Austen is one of those classic authors that entices the minds of screenwriters all over the world, inspiring countless movies and TV shows. The most recent Austen adaptation to make the rounds is Netflix’s upcoming Persuasion. However, 2022 has already seen the release of another masterful reworking of a classic Austen novel to the screen: Andrew Ahn‘s Fire Island.
Kicking off Pride Month 2022 on Hulu, Fire Island brings the plot of Pride and Pride to the 2020s gay scene. Gone are the Regency era ballrooms and estates, and in come the bars, clubs, and house parties of the titular Long Island adjacent queer vacation spot. Still, Fire Island has a lot in common with the Pride and Prejudice versions that came before, and not just because of its source material. Most significantly, Andrew Ahn manages to capture perfectly the raw energy and the titillating restraint of the novel’s arguably most famous and beloved adaptation: 2005’s Pride & Prejudicedirected by Joe Wright.
Fire Island does not try to hide its connection to other Austen and Austen-inspired works. The first proper line spoken in the movie is precisely the one dear, old Jane chose as the opener for her 1813 book, though Noah (Joel Kim Booster) is quick to remark that this, “in want of a wife,” thing sounds like hetero nonsense. Later in the film, while Noah goes on one of his tirades against Will (Conrad Ricamora), Fire Island‘s equivalent of Mr. Darcy, Howie (Bowen Yang) cuts him off with, “Way harsh, Tai” a direct reference to Cluelessthe most iconic adaptation of Austen’s Emma. But it’s with Wright’s movie that the film truly resonates. In the middle of underwear parties, sexual innuendos, and stray Molly pills that are maybe just regular probiotics, Ahn manages to create a sexual tension akin to that of Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods) briefly touching the fabric of Jane Bennett’s (Rosamund Pike) dress or Mr. Darcy’s (Matthew McFayden) unforgettable hand flex after helping Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) to her carriage. All his effort culminates in a well-earned kiss between Noah and Will at the end of the film, but the real high point is the dance the couple shares in the aforementioned underwear party.
In order to achieve this balance between obvious desire and a romantic kind of stoicism, Ahn has to make a few changes to the dynamics between the Bennetts and the crowd at Netherfield Park. Or, rather, between scam queen Erin’s (Margaret Cho) five “kids” and Charlie’s (James Scully) guests. Regency England and 2022 Fire Island could not be more different from one another. Thus, some of the changes Ahn has to make come from necessity. In order to make the story more believable and appropriate to our day and age, the Bennett’s traditional household is replaced by a found family comprised of five gay men and a lonely lesbian that bought a house on the island with the money she won from a lawsuit. . Erin is supposed to stand in for both Bennett parents, but, in reality, she’s all Mrs. Bennett (Brenda Blethyn), screaming about her babies and making inappropriate comments about Charlie being loaded in the worst possible moments. However, despite being excited about one of her boys dating a doctor, Erin does not have to worry about getting them married lest they become destitute. The imminence of Mr. Bennett’s (Donald Sutherland) death that will lead his five daughters into absolute poverty is replaced by the urgency of enjoying a last summer on the island before Erin has to sell her house to make up for her poor financial decisions.
The parallels aren’t hard to spot. Noah and Howie, of course, stand for Elizabeth and Jane, but their bond is born not out of sisterly love, but out of identification: being both Asian and from a working class background, they understand the amount of prejudice and duress the other has to endure. Lizzie’s boysick younger sisters Lidya (Jena Malone) and Kitty (Carey Mulligan) are replaced by twinks Keegan (Tomás Matos) and Luke (Matt Rogers), while the Regency nerd Mary (Talulah Riley) is represented by the uptight Max (Torian Miller). In lieu of Lydia’s disgraceful elopement with Mr. Wickham (Rupert Friend), there’s Dex (Zane Phillips) purposefully leaking a sex tape of him and Luke. And, instead of paying for the wedding to save the Bennetts’ reputation, it’s with the threat of legal action that Will saves the day.
Some characters are cut or transformed entirely to better suit the story. Mr. Darcy’s delightful little sister, Georgiana (Tamzin Merchant), who is briefly described as a possible match for Mr. Bingley, gives way to Charlie’s shallow ex Rhys (Michael Graceffa). In other instances, characters and scenes are merged together. Cooper (Nick Adams) is Miss Bingley (Kelly Reilly) when he’s making Noah and Howie feel unwelcome at Charlie’s place, but he’s Lady Catherine (Judi Dench) when telling Noah that Charlie brought Will to the island to hook up with him. In a way, he’s even Lady Catherine’s poor, sickly daughter, since she’s the one that was supposed to marry Darcy.
But the most important differences and similarities are the ones between Mr. Darcy and Will, and Elizabeth and Noah. The Fire Island main couple preserves many of their Pride and Prejudice counterparts’ quirks and are still very much recognizable. Nonetheless, some things had to be tweaked to bring their love story to its new setting as well as to make them more compelling. Not that Lizzie and Darcy aren’t compelling enough, but the stakes in Fire Island are very different from the ones in Pride and Prejudice. Therefore, the exact same dynamic between the exact same characters would never be able to take off.
Noah has a lot in common with Elizabeth Bennett. They are both poor, though not poor-poor. They both love to read, have a very acid sense of humor, and aren’t likely to take crap from others with a poker face. Noah is very proud, just like Elizabeth, and takes Will’s mean words about him to heart. Just as Miss Bennett does in the ball at Netherfield, Noah makes it clear that he’s only doing the polite thing when he’s forced to entertain Will at Erin’s dinner party. However, Noah is a lot less passive than Lizzie. First of all, there’s a certain Emma quality to him. Like this other Austen heroine, Noah is a man with a mission: getting his best friend laid. His availability up until the end of the movie comes primarily from the fact that he made a promise to find a match for Howie before he goes looking for someone for himself. Howie, in turn, is much more insecure than Jane, reminding us more of Clueless‘Tai (Brittany Murphy) or Emma‘s Harriet.
Noah also does not stand by waiting for Will to get things done. He follows Will into the Ice Palace when he tries to escape him and is there to throw Dex’s phone in the pool after Will invokes the power of the law. This initiative has to do with him being a man, of course, but also with the fact that we are not in the 1800s anymore. Even if Ahn’s protagonist was a woman, audiences would expect her to do more than just sit tight while her love interest took care of things.
Likewise, Will has a lot in common with Mr. Darcy, but there are some key differences. The blueprint to all brooding romantic heroes is there in the moments in which Will looks displeased by Noah and his family, as well as in his lines about Noah not being hot enough to be so annoying. His concern for Charlie’s feelings is just as palpable as Darcy’s concern for Bingley. The scenes in which Mr. Darcy simply refuses to deal with his feelings and marches off are reproduced with some exaggeration, with Will throwing his ice cream cone away and running just as soon as he sees Noah. But, on the other hand, Will is more open and his affection for Noah is much easier to notice than Darcy’s. We rarely see disdain in Conrad Ricamora’s face. His mask of seriousness and boredom often even breaks a little, revealing a shy smile or a timid caring gaze. Unlike Mr. Darcy’s abrupt changes of mood, that we only understand as affection because that’s what we expect it to be, Will has more nuance to him. When he first meets Noah, it even looks like he’s already a little interested – until the fake boyfriend thing takes him by surprise.
Will is also made closer to Noah in aspects that go beyond affection and desire. Like Noah, he’s Asian, and his token role in his group of white friends makes it harder for us to believe he’s 100% comfortable in his position. That’s quite a change from Mr. Darcy, who, at first, seems right at home with Miss Bingley’s elitist comments. Though it is said that Will comes from money, Noah is also made to identify with him in matters of class, as his job as a lawyer usually consists of defending wronged tenants in eviction cases. This has a lot to do with the reduced stakes of the movie compared to its source material. When the choice is between marriage and destitution, Mr. Darcy’s social distance is irrelevant, or even desirable. But when the only thing on the line is a hookup that may or may not evolve into something more, it does not seem likely that anyone would be smitten by someone so far away and so hard to read.
Similarly, the hand twitches and the dress touching have no place in the sexually liberated atmosphere of Fire Island. However, that does not mean they do not have equivalents. Not quite in Howie and Charlie’s relationship, which is built much more chastely around soft kisses and puzzles. But in that underwear party, among half-naked bodies dancing and kissing and grinding against one another, Noah and Will share a moment just as tense as it is sweet. Much like the touch of Elizabeth’s hand is an indication of something more, Will and Noah are surrounded by the promise of sex. The party-goers make their intentions as clear as the Bennett sisters desire to find suitable husbands. Yet, Will and Noah hardly touch. Their hands are placed on each other’s bodies, but they do not move, and their kiss ends before it even has a chance to begin. Ahn’s camera shoots them up close, focusing on details, highlighting the tentativeness of their touches. And that’s Fire Island‘s hand flex, right there: the high point of a muted sexual tension growing undercover amidst much more explicit relationships.