REVIEW: The Jane Austen Book Club (film adaptation)
Review by Diana Birchall
The Jane Austen boom heats up with the arrival of screenwriter/director Robin Swicord’s deft and funny adaptation of Karen Joy Fowler’s popular novel. Six women who form a book club to read their way through Jane Austen’s novels may sound like a recipe for a summer nap, but Swicord’s charming comedy is bright and alert. A bitingly funny opening montage shows the irritating overload of computers and cell phones gone mad in modern city life, and we immediately understand why the book club members need to escape into the Austen canon for solace. Ironically, their fraught lives find their own reflection in the books – Sylvia (Amy Brennerman), whose husband is having an affair, trembles at the infidelities in Mansfield Park; her charmingly accident prone lesbian daughter Allegra (Maggie Grace) is drawn to the duality of Sense and Sensibility; and Grigg (Hugh Dancy), the group’s one male member, is an adorable modern day Mr. Darcy as computer nerd. The ensemble’s hilariously disparate characters have a warm chemistry together and are impressive individually. Amy Brennerman’s emotionally wrenching Sylvia is tenderly supported by the expressive Maggie Grace as her daughter, and Maria Bello is outstanding as a ditz who’s emotionally lavish with her dogs but unavailable for relationships. Swicord, employing lively, vibrant camera work and joyously colorful settings, orchestrates the unlikely spectacle of actors doing lit crit with jokes, with such seemingly effortless verve as to put us, as Jane Austen said, in “dancing, laughing, exclaiming spirits.”
July 9th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Sounds exciting - hope it will be as good as that, because it really could be great or a complete disaster, but anything with Hugh Dancy in is always good entertainment
July 10th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Well, I wrote that for a local newspaper, which is restrictive (only 250 words, and I would have compared Hugh Dancy’s character to Henry Tilney rather than to Darcy, if I’d written that primarily for this list!). However, I do think you’ll find it a very enjoyable movie - it celebrates Austen without offending the sensibilities of we who love her.
July 15th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Any more comments, itself, about Hugh Dancy? And wow, lucky you! I can’t wait to see it.
July 16th, 2007 at 6:38 am
Does Maggie Graces charater get alot of screen time? Also how was her acting??
I cant wiat for this film!