(2007) While the humorous opening series of things that can go wrong with technology, involving vending machines, parking-permit tickets, credit-card inserts at a gasoline pump, would be funny for just about anybody, it would probably be best if one has already read, or at least seen film adaptations of, some of Jane Austen's novels before watching director Robin Swicord's delightful film about a book club in the central valley of California of six readers in search of their own Jane Austen. Jane Austen's novels are like prose tales of table manners involving the proper use of silverware and only discreetly suggesting the reason for separating knives from forks.

Along with her search for the ideal man, Bernadette (Kathy Baker) organizes a book club - "All Jane Austen, all the time" - of four other women and one accidental male. Each reader, having a separate preference for one of Austen's novels, leads a discussion of the book and its characters on consecutive months; the circumstances of each individual in some respects are mimicked by the chosen novel's events.

They begin with Emma in February, the choice of Jocelyn (Maria Bello), a lonely dog breeder who has recently lost one of her precious ridgebacks - "You just want to be obeyed," says Grigg Harris (Hugh Dancy), "That's why you have dogs" - who tries to play matchmaker with young Grigg, a bachelor who rides a bicycle or drives a car using biodiesel fuel, and middle-aged Sylvia Avila (Amy Brenneman), recently divorced from her husband Daniel (Jimmy Smits) of more than 20 years. Meanwhile Grigg, the only member of the group who isn't already familiar with Austen's oeuvre, will attempt to convince Jocelyn, whom he mistakenly assumes has taken an interest in him for herself, that science fiction is a worthy genre, starting with Ursula Le Guin. During the book discussion he suggests that love is like gravity, losing control and going crazy. "Love is an act of sanity," another counters, while a third questions whether Emma is actually a snob or perhaps Austen is being ironic.

In March the group takes up Sylvia's pick, Mansfield Park, in which Fanny Price never gives up on Edmund. When the women (sans Prudie) arrive at Grigg's house in April for his selection (by default since all the others had been chosen), Northanger Abbey, the first book Austen wrote but last published, he surprises them with spooky, Halloween-like effects along with his having actually read The Mysteries of Udolpho, one of the gothic books alluded to within the novel - a novel about novels.

Bernadette takes charge in May with Pride and Prejudice. Might Charlotte have been a lesbian, a trait of which Austen herself wasn't aware? Sylvia's daughter Allegra (Maggie Grace) has a lesbian relationship with Corinne; Grigg asks her if she's a lesbian "full-time." Prudie Drummond (Emily Blunt), who's having marital difficulties, remarks that Jane Austen never shows what happens after the weddings that end her novels. Trey (Kevin Zegers), a high-school senior, has been flirting - he's the spoon for her ice cream - with Prudie, who teaches French, while her husband, Dean (Marc Blucas) - a compleat Neanderthal in her female friends' estimation - cancelled a planned trip to Paris because of a basketball game. Ever interjecting French expressions into her commentary, Prudie feels inferior for her never having been to France.

From her hospital bed, Allegra holds court for Sense and Sensibility in July, having broken her wrist along with her love affair with Corinne. Wouldn't Mrs Dashwood have been a perfectly suitable match for Col Brandon rather than the much younger Marianne? But the girl is willing to take risks of the heart, generous with her affections and fearless in the face of social mores.

Finally in July at the beach (since a significant portion of the novel takes place on the English coast at Lyme), the readers and a few additional attendees meet to discuss Persuasion, a story of persuading two people to give each other a second chance in love, though Prudie, responsible for leading the discussion, fails to reach the scene. Instead she deals with the dilemma of having to cross a street with Trey on the other side when the crosswalk sign flashes in her mind: "What would Jane Austen do?"

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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