The Jane Austen Book Club
Director: Robin Swicord. Screenplay: Robin Swicord, based on a book by Karen Joy Fowler. Cinematography: John Toon. Film editing: Maryann Brandon. Production design: Rusty Smith. Music: Aaron Zigman. Producers: John Calley, Julie Lynn, Diana Napper. With: Maria Bello, Emily Blunt, Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, Maggie Grace, Jimmy Smits, Ed Brigadier, Kevin Zegers, Marc Blucas, Hugh Dancy, Parisa Fitz-Henley, Lynn Redgrave, Myndy Crist, Gwendoline Yeo, Miguel Nájera. USA. 105 min. 2007.
Kind of lonely and looking for companionship, a group of women and a young man they’ve met decide to read through Jane Austen’s novels and gather to discuss them on a regular basis, perhaps gaining clues to leading more fulfilled and gratifying lives.
Like most movies with this sort of premise, the picture strings together various fuzzy-minded formulas, none of which seem any smarter or fresher in combination than they’ve seemed in countless Hollywood romances on their own. The cast is lively enough to give the proceedings a modicum of entertainment value, although Jimmy Smits looks awful; what happened to the handsome guy of yore? Your best bet, as so often in these cases, is to stay home and reread the books—the Austen ones, not the one that inspired the film. You’re sure to profit at least as much as the shallow coffee-clatchers on the screen. – David Sterritt
