Curse of the Black Pearl: Less Than Sincere
After CotBP's release, the writers were disappointed that many people were willing to debate over Jack's gray morality and complexities, but almost entirely ignored Elizabeth's.
Part of what I love about this scene: Pirates is stuffed full of negotiation scenes. Even though this feels like a quieter, character building scenes--and it is one!--it's still a negotiation scene. This is Elizabeth's own proposal, in a way. Their voices are calmer, their acting more subtle, but she's fighting with everything she knows to avoid Norrington leaving Will for dead.
And I love the performances coming through here, especially how Keira's performance contrasts not only against Jack's performance but also against her own performances in other scenes in the trilogy. We see in other scenes how she plays Elizabeth when she's genuinely elated. Here, she makes her smiles forced and fleeting between looks that are much more resigned, while the rest of what she'd said earlier in the movie hangs in the air for us--that Norrington is "the type of man every woman should dream of marrying." It helps convey to the audience that a marriage to Norrington is just transactional for Elizabeth, a necessary sacrifice, while for Norrington it clearly is more than that.
Cutting this scene softens (probably intentionally) the first real look the audience gets at how genuinely ruthless Elizabeth can be, with whatever tools she has at a given time. In the theatrical cut, her actions come across as more in-the-moment. With this uncut, she will eventually go back on the word she deliberately gave Norrington, even after he'd given her the courtesy of a private moment to admit the truth. This scene shows us how much she's willing to commit to a lie, how willing she is to hurt herself and people around her when she wants something badly enough. This is the scene that most directly establishes a basis for her betrayal of Jack to kraken. It makes her less "likeable."
But Elizabeth Swann is a liar. It is a defining character trait for her, as surely as Jack is sly or Will is brash.
They should not have cut this scene.