The Jane Austen Book Club, 2007

The Jane Austen Book Club, 2007
Director: Robin Swicord
Cast: Kathy Baker, Hugh Dancy, Amy Brenneman


Stage: home theatre


The piece in short: Explores Austen's adage that general incivility is at love's essence. Sylvia's husband dumps her for another woman, so Bernadette and Jocelyn organize a book club to distract her. They recruit Sylvia's daughter Allegra; Prudie, a young teacher whose marriage may be on the rocks; and Grigg, a sci-fi fan who joins out of attraction to Jocelyn. The six read and discuss one Austen novel per month. Jocelyn tries to interest Grigg in Sylvia; Allegra falls in love with a woman she meets skydiving; Prudie contemplates an affair with a student; Sylvia's ex keeps popping up. In the discussions, characters reveal themselves in their comments. By the end, are truths universally acknowledged?

Preps: I have heard this piece is splendid and need to check it out for myself. The cast seems amazing. And I like Austen and movies made from scripts that base upon her work. Let's dig this a bit deeper.


Reality: The marriage is as strong as its weakest partner. One of many sayings in this piece that cannot leave you cold. The setting is brilliant, the story is very real. Revolves around real life and real situations you can sit into quite easily. The marriages that break and finding true reasons why this is so, how did it happen. To have a book club can be only a thing in US, I don't suppose they are so popular in Europe. Nevertheless, I am inspired by these strong women that are trying to find a special way and find a mutual interest in the Jane Austen's work. Also, finding guys that are willing to participate, seems a bit awkward, but turns out funny. Draws my interest and in some sense makes this movie a bit more believable and not so much put into yet another village surroundings, where women besides their household activities, don't have much to do, so they chat in a book's club.

I love the dialogues and I love the energy of the cast. I seem to know most of them from some television shows and I like seeing them again in this setting that is just a bit upgraded from the TV setting I am familiar.
It's a lovely family movie, or should /dare I say, chick movie. I suppose most of female population would really enjoy looking at this. And finding out there definitely are men around that read something more than Finance's headlines, Times new roman and car ads. And that they are able to speak about this. This is not really common, therefore not really so believable.

Nevertheless, they seem to fit into this women's environment like a pie on a plate. Maybe the whole movie could be treated as a positive commercial for reading books, because this present time seems to revolve around other media and books seem to be forgotten. Well, not in all circles. The piece implies that true romance could happen in a perfect environment like in the smell of old books in an antique shop or in a library :) Which is perfect antipod for every media movement we are facing in this weird time, where noone seems to have time for anything.


My personal rating: 7,0 (a truly remarkable piece, for relaxation and dreaming aways - for girls. With some fine quotes for sure)