At one point during THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB, based on the novel by Karen Joy Fowler, one member of the eponymous club watches another burst into tears and run into another room over an Austenian point. “Reading Jane Austen is a minefield” she opines, and so it is. Not because the subject matter of Austen’s novels is deliberately provocative, but rather because they are such finely observed portraits of the way human beings behave that the shock of recognition can be overwhelming when come upon unawares. The time is now, the place is Sacramento, but as the film unfolds, it becomes obvious that people haven’t changed that much as they bumble their way through relationships, and that Jane is as good a rule book to follow as any and much better than most when it comes to getting to the heart of muddling through it all.
It all begins with a funeral, two disappointments, and brainstorm. That last is conjured by Bernadette (Kathy Baker), a free spirit with five marriages under her belt, and a penchant for both whipped cream and yoga, who decides that her friends, new and old, need a diversion to get their minds off their troubles. The funeral is of a beloved show dog belonging to Jocelyn (Maria Bello), another free spirit, but one who has never married or even fallen in love, which seems sensible when her best friend Sylvia (Amy Brennerman) is abruptly told by her husband of 25 years (Jimmy Smits), that he has fallen in love with someone else. The other disappointment is also of a husbandly nature, and comes to Bernadette’s attention when she notices Prudie (Emily Blunt), a total stranger discreetly weeping while they are both waiting in line for a Jane Austen film festival. Prudie’s husband (Marc Blucas), has just told her that their trip to Paris is off so that he can take a client to a basketball game. The diversion, of course, is the book club, six members, six novels, and each member will lead the discussion on one of them. Bernadette picks “Pride and Prejudice” and this is only right, since in a way Bernadette is Mrs. Bennett, with five daughters in search of happiness, even if they don’t know it yet. Well, four. The fifth member is Sylvia’s daughter, Allegra (Maggie Grace), who has moved in with her mother for the time being and is having her own run bad luck due to a love of extreme sports. But the sixth is Grigg (Hugh Dancy), a toothsome if gawky young man who tries to pick up Sylvia at the hotel where they are both attending conventions, she canine, he science fiction. When she questions him on his feelings about older women, he assumes she’s talking about herself when in fact she has him staked out as a fling for Sylvia, to help her get over her broken heart and marriage.
Over those six months, much will happen. Prudie will confront her hippie-chick nightmare of a mother (Lynn Redgrave as an addled explosion of color), as well as the lifelong issues that have driven her to a defensive bob of a hairstyle and clothes cut as severely as a straightjacket, while at the same time being tempted by a smooth-talking senior at the school where she teaches French. Grigg will pitch woo and his favorite science fiction books at Jocelyn only to have them pitched back at him, but not in a good way as she keeps deflecting the woo, if not the books, at Sylvia, and Sylvia will get a new perspective on life that starts with making flan and ends with making peace. If some of this resonates with plot points from the Austen novels, that’s no coincidence, but don’t look for direct correspondences. This is a translation of the spirit of Austen’s novels, not the specifics. In the same way that the quaint English villages and small towns of Regency England translate into a modern Sacramento, where all the protagonists run into each other and observe each other unseen thereby advancing their plots.
The arch tone coupled with the compassion for the foibles of existence are everywhere in evidence here, brought to life with sterling performances by an ensemble cast that works as a cohesive whole while being standouts individually. No scene better exemplifies that than the one where Sylvia, runs into her ex-husband and his new girlfriend at the local supermarket. Looking like 10 miles of bad road, Brenneman finds the farce, the tragedy, the aching sadness, and the painfully funny awkwardness with which the moment is rife as her ex scurries into his car promising to never shop there again leaving Sylvia alone and bruised.
THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB celebrates why said author has remained in print, and in people’s hearts, for two centuries. The immediacy of cross-purposes, misapprehensions, and the general confusion that is part of living with others and seeing them for who they really are just as fresh and as trenchant whether dressed in jeans or petticoats, and just as piquant.
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