It’s been almost 20 years since the 2005 movie Pride and Prejudice came out. The movie is based on Jane Austen’s novel of the same name. In fact, the 20th anniversary of the movie will be on September 16th, 2025. Starring Keira Knightley playing Elizabeth, or Lizzie, Bennet, and Matthew Macfadyen playing Mr. Darcy.
But throughout the 20 years of this movie coming out, one scene stands out in the movie, even to this day. The “hand scene” performed by Mr. Darcy. The hand scene is a scene in the very beginning of the movie where Elizabeth, or Lizzie, is being escorted out of Mr. Bingley’s house after visiting her sick sister, Jane. As she is being escorted out onto her carriage, Mr. Darcy offers his hand to help her up. She takes the hand and looks at him for a moment as Mr. Darcy leaves. The camera then pans to Mr. Darcy’s hand flexing.
Whether unexpected or not, this 5-second scene of his hand flexing became instantly popular with the fans absolutely loving it. It even went far to make a huge group of fans who swear that it was the “most romantic scene” in the movie as a whole. Overtopping the 2 confession scenes in the movie and even the end marriage scene for one 5-second scene that could be missed with a blink of an eye.
Well, the actor, Macfadyen, had disclosed in a Screen Rant interview that “Joe Wright had just spotted that. It wasn’t [scripted].” Even going as far to say, “It was just my natural reaction to touching Keira’s hand.” Yet most fans still felt that the moment was Mr. Darcy, whether scripted or not. And that’s reasonable that they think that way in the first place.
If you are looking at that scene and you think of Mr. Darcy doing it as the character, not something done by Macfadyen. The scene gives that person who is watching it from that perspective; it gives the watcher an idea about Mr. Darcy. Not an idea of what he will do or what’s to come in the movie. But instead, an idea into Mr. Darcy’s mind. The whole movie and book, in the very least in the beginning, painted a picture of Mr. Darcy. A smart man who was more reserved and drawn away. In fact, in the novel the first moment we get introduced to Mr. Darcy, this is what was said of him, “Darcy was clever. He was at the same time haughty, reserved, and fastidious, and his manners, though well-bred, were not inviting” (Austen pg 15). It further in the movie showed Mr. Darcy as a mysterious man. Who had become like a puzzle to the audience, not for the things he did say but for the things he didn’t say. And the movie only perpetuated this idea, often panning in on his silent looks, his actions that couldn’t be described to someone—only something that you had to watch to truly get a grasp of the actions.
The moment was supposed to hint at their connection to Lizzie and Mr. Darcy. The scene right before the hand flexing one, the carriage scene, was meant to show that connection between Lizzie and her feelings and connection of Mr. Darcy. The audience watched Lizzie looking at Mr. Darcy, evidently showing her eyes lingering to look at him. They watched her eyes completely fixated on him, yet the audience had to wonder, what is Mr. Darcy feeling about her? Does he even think of her in a romantic way? And like all the moments before this scene, we have no idea. That is until the flexing scene. This scene inadvertently shows how Mr. Darcy feels. This scene is technically the first time in the whole movie that Lizzie’s internal tension is both physically and mentally broken. With the added flex, it can portray Mr. Darcy feels the same.
Mr. Darcy is a character who, apart from his confession and the end scene, shows his feelings towards Lizzie through action rather than word. So the choice of showing this scene was showing the feelings of Darcy that have been hidden away from the world and the audience. To most fans, it shows as a visual representation of his yearning for Lizzie. That a simple touch of the hand was still way too much for him to handle.
There is also an added point being the time period playing a factor in this scene. Both the book and movie are set around the same time frame. The years of it were 1811 and 1812 of the Regency period in Britain. In this time period, women would wear gloves to protect their hands. Furthermore, during this time period, touching was a very looked-upon thing. For a woman, it was highly looked down upon touching the opposite sex around your age with bare hands, the exception being a brother or cousin of relation. According to an article explaining etiquette of the Regency period, “For a lady, even the shaking of the hands of a gentleman could be considered as being overly-familiar. Touching a gentleman was a sign a lady was interested in him” (Cobaltfairy). So that could also be a contending factor to the hand flex reaction performed by Mr. Darcy.
But to fans, it didn’t matter if it was planned or not, it didn’t matter if it had to do with the time period. Fans took this scene and ran with it. Eminently making it a huge cultural impact. So much so, it’s still being brought up and talked about almost 20 years later. In every interview I’ve watched of Macfadyen in preparation for this article—either on the shortened versions of interviews or in general interviews about whole different movies—he is constantly questioned to this day about playing Mr. Darcy and specifically that hand flex.
And it doesn’t only affect Macfadyen. It became a cultural moment of the hand flex either directly being mentioned or thought to be. In the popular TV series The Summer I Turned Pretty, based on the book with the same name, there is a scene where Conrad, played by Christopher Briney, is thought to be doing it. With a video on TikTok going viral with the text saying “Conrad doing the Mr. Darcy hand flex is all I ever needed” above the clip (dvnnisimone). Again in the movie, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a video had gone pretty viral showing the character Snow, played by Tom Blyth, is doing the same move. The text on the screen being “Why is no one talking about how Snow is doing the hand flex when Lucy lets go” (fjkajx). With both comments saying things like “Mr. Darcy Hand flex”, “Conrad is modern Mr. Darcy”, and even the author and co-screenwriter of The Summer I Turned Pretty admitting that the hand flex was meant to directly parallel Mr. Darcy. It even has got a small trend recording a small romance in a movie and putting the caption of “This is my equivalent of the hand flex iykyk” stemming from a video by brunasjournals.
This hand flex has even been a huge selling point to fans. With the majority of the merch for Pride and Prejudice being of the hand flex—ranging from shirts to paintings to even pins. And people are buying it. It’s still so culturally impactful and so popular within not only the fandom, but also the world that people are going as far to both manufacture shirts of the scene, as well as buying and wearing said shirt.
In conclusion, I don’t think at the rate we’re going that Mr. Darcy’s scene will stop being a loved and cherished moment of the movie for a very, very long time. And it’s quite understandable throughout the psychological aspect of the scene. Especially for people with a love of Rom-Coms and romance movies alike.