Really Surprised!

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

A tap root into the subterranean strata of popularity in (1) Jane Austen and (2) "Sex and the City", both apparently having peaked at about the same time as this film was released. I'll bet Jane Austen never wrote such a clumsy sentence as the one I just finished writing. Five women -- all in varying degrees of domestic distress -- discover that they have a common interest in Jane Austen's novels and form a club to discuss them one at a time. They even invite a guy who pretty much holds his own. There are rough parallels between Austen's plots and the romantic careers of the club's members. I'll have to assume the parallels are there because they've been so often alluded to. I've never read any of the books. I've seen most of the available film versions but the characters and narratives are similar enough that I get them mixed up, just as I do with Dickens.You'll probably enjoy it more if you're already an Austen fan because some of the comments that crop up during the club meetings sound as if they make sense, although it may be going too far to suggest that the separation of eggs in the preparation of flan is symbolic of the divorce of somebody's parents. None of the performances really stand out but Emily Blunt is always oddly appealing and Maria Bello is precisely emotional enough.

I liked the Jane Austen Book Club, it was a really charming tale of 6 people (5 women and 1 male) that get together to read Jane Austin's complete works. But it's really not as much about Jane Austin, but rather the intricacies of relationships between men and women. Having one male to give the masculine point of view to the females in the group was the balance. Of course he (Hugh Dancy) joins the group at 1st to get closer to a woman (Maria Bello) in the group that he met, not knowing she's actually trying to set him up with her friend (Amy Brenneman) that's going through a divorce. The other women in the group are all dealing with various relationship problems from a lesbian breakup to a woman who believes her husband is having an affair, and actually wants to compensate for this by being attracted to a younger man. OK, OK yes it is a chick flick, but as a male you might want to watch it to see what makes women tick (LOL). They try to imply that Austin's characters are timeless because they continue to apply to the people of this decade as well as when they were written in the 1800s. But it's not a silly comparison, just brief mentions of certain characters and then you see how they might fit into one of the dysfunctional relationships all these women seem to be in at the moment. It's light, it's touching, it's make believe. Hugh Dancy is charming as the single male in the group, and of course we women see him as a male we could relate to and love. Whereas Jimmy Smits as the cheating husband going through the divorce who now wants to come back to the marriage he left was a bit of a woman's fantasy about divorced men(definitely not reality). Emily Blunts portrayal of the frustrated woman who's tempted to have an affair with a younger man when her husband doesn't pay enough attention to her or her likes (i.e., the Austin books) is stereotypical , and then throw in a lesbian relationships just to let people know that gay relationships are very similar to straight relationships with all their complexity. But it works in this movie.

Whilst I haven't read Jane Austen herself I have read the novel on which this movie is based and for me the movie started badly by ramming the present day down our throats, possibly in a misguided attempt to point up the contrast between our modern world and the world of Jane Austen. In the novel, although it was clearly set in the present day there was still the feeling of being cocooned in a time-warp from virtually the first page. Eventually the spell woven by the book does permeate through to the film but a good three or four reels is wasted before this happens. There's some fine ensemble acting but though Emily Blunt is excellent she is light years away from the Prudie in the novel, as is Hugh Dancy as Griggs. Having said that the film, overall, is enjoyable and worth seeing.

I don't know if this is one of the best films I have seen. But this is certainly one of the most intelligent. films based on books (and I'm referring to Austen books, I didn't read the novel it's based upon) tend to be irritating, often insulting the original books and the intelligence of their readers. when the film tries to stay "loyal", in many occasions it is nothing but a poor shadow of the original book.This film is nothing of this sort. Those who made it really loved and understood Jane Austen (and literature in general). Anyone of admires her books will find in this movie lots to think about. And still, it is also a movie, with beautiful and interesting characters, none of them is made ridiculous or flat.Small movie, but worth every second of watching.