This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Drama, J, NEW ON VIDEO, Romance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Director: Robin Swicord
Starring: Maria Bello, Emily Blunt, Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, Maggie Grace, Jimmy Smits, Kevin Zegers, Marc Blucas
As both writer and director, Robin Swicord took Karen Joy Fowler’s novel and turned it first into a very clever screenplay and then, with the help of some very talented performers, made an entertaining movie. Watching it along with me, was an almost all female audience, most of whom looked old enough to remember when Jane Austen was on the best seller list. The dialog was strong and the characters were interesting and the film had a high energy level for a romantic drama, though the whole thing does play a little like a Penguin ad for the Jane Austen Classics Collection.
This story revolves around five women and one man who get together once a month to discuss one of Jane Austen’s books. Kathy Baker is Bernadette, a strong older woman living life by her own rules, who organizes the club to help her friend, Sylvia (Brennemen) get over a heartbreak. Sylvia’s lesbian daughter, Allegra (Maggie Grace) joins to support her mom, as does Sylvia’s friend, Jocelyn (Maria Bello), who brings along a young man she just met (Hugh Dancy), in hopes of playing matchmaker. A fragile, and strange, young married teacher played by Emily Blunt in a performance that still stands out in this very well-acted film, rounds out the group. As the group works its way through the Austen library, their own love lives parallel the classic writer’s storylines. I have only read one Austen book, but even for a literary neophyte like me, this plot device is apparent and entertaining.
No doubt about it, stamp Chick Flick on the box an send it off to off to Oxygen: The Women’s Cable Station for a bi-monthly airing. This is a chick flick, but it is also an impressive piece of light-hearted dramatic screenwriting and a forum for talented actresses (thosewhose last names begin with the letter ‘B’, it seems). Austen lovers, as well as fans of romantic drama will find this film well worth their hard earned pesos, and significantly better than this years’ earlier Austen effort, “Becoming Jane”.
