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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 11/28/2007 : 21:56:33
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The Jane Austen Book Club
Back in the day there used to be a popular NYC subway ad campaign that featured a variety of ethnic faces each happily munching a sandwich and the tagline said: You don't have t be Jewish to love Levi's rye bread. Down in the Village some graffiti wit had daubed "But it helps" on nearly every poster.
You don't have to be a Jane Austen fan to love this film, but it sure helps. The premise builds on what is threatening to become a sub-genre ... a group of people who all admire a certain writer discover parallels in their own lives to the books and/or authors they love.
It helps that there are some terrific performances to carry you through the ongoing conceit of ascribing to six lives aspects of the six Austen novels discussed by the Club. It's almost an ensemble piece, except focus lingers longest on Maria Bello's Jocelyn. She's an attractive, lonely dog-breeder whose animals are filling too many emotional gaps, and like many single people, she's enveloped herself in the armour of control-freakery. Bello, always good, here turns in a subtle performance that outshines the rest for quiet intensity. Like a fine painter, she portrays the spaces between. Nothing showy, just solid in-the-moment stuff.
The others, including Jimmy Smits, Amy Brenneman and Kathy Baker, are all fine. And it's certainly not the actors' fault that there's not enough sexual chemistry whenever it's called for. At first I thought that might have been a deliberate choice by writer/director Robin Swicord in order to create the kind of distance achieved by Austen herself all the better to sharpen that sense of witty observation.
But, if so, it just doesn't work. First of all Swicord - who may have learned a trick or three about confidence from her father-in-law Elia Kazan - lacks his wit never mind that of Austen.
Austen deconstructed by a pedant becomes vapid soap opera, and while Swicord doesn't exactly land face down in that bland puddle, neither does she have enough leavening to lift her own material much beyond it. Austen's stories transcend their time and mock themselves.
These Book Club characters and their onscreen creator take it all far too seriously to make us care.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 11/28/2007 22:45:15 |
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demonic 
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 11/29/2007 : 03:05:02
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| Surely this film has to have one of the most offensively bland and MOR trailers of the year, but I got to see enough of this movie to ensure I never, ever see it. So that's a job well done all in all. |
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Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 11/29/2007 : 09:27:19
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Yup, it's a bit bland, but not terrible. The bit done worst is the confusion over whom the guy is being set up with - it's just not realistic (e.g. after he's made it clear to Jocelyn that he likes her, she asks "Do you like older women?" in order to see if she can set him up with her friend, and not as a trap).
The ages also don't add up. Jimmy Smits's character is over fifty, he and his wife started dating in high school and have been married for about twenty years (and this figure is given as the years the wife has given him). So are they supposed to have been going out for about twelve years before getting married? Not very plausible. |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 11/29/2007 : 10:13:49
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Well, I'm a huge Austen fan and I do intend to see this movie no matter what.
(I also think Jimmy Smits is HOT!)
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 11/29/2007 : 10:54:20
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quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
Well, I'm a huge Austen fan and I do intend to see this movie no matter what.
(I also think Jimmy Smits is HOT!)
You will find stuff to like, but I'd be interested to hear whether you, like me, felt that Swicord had done just a tad too much squeezing and pushing and pulling to find parallels between her characters and Austen's.
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 11/29/2007 : 11:06:02
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quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
Well, I'm a huge Austen fan and I do intend to see this movie no matter what.
(I also think Jimmy Smits is HOT!)
You will find stuff to like, but I'd be interested to hear whether you, like me, felt that Swicord had done just a tad too much squeezing and pushing and pulling to find parallels between her characters and Austen's.
I'll keep it in mind, and hope this gets to Israel soon so I can let you know.
(IMDb doesn't have a release date for Israel listed, so I do hope it gets here.)
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The Jane Austen Book Club
