All Critics (118)
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Top Critics (28)
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Fresh (75)
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Rotten (44)
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DVD (9)
Unlike so many chick flicks that celebrate female solidarity as a concept without ever making us feel it, The Jane Austen Book Club is convincingly feminist in a nonpolitical way.
The film has an undeniable, easygoing charm. Real life is seldom so pleasingly plotted, but then real life is what people go to movies like this to get away from.
Leave it to the Godmother of Chick Lit to inspire the best chick picture in many an age.
The script might have slipped into caricature, as often the adaptations of Austen's novels have, but Swicord opts for characters in whom we might see ourselves.
The episodes roll by in smooth progression, and the talkiness has the round, impassioned tones of readers ignited by fiction.
...not a genre film but...deserves mention for portraying a character who is a fan of science-fiction but is not characterized as a hopeless geek...
A surprisingly successful, un-Hallmark-ified take on the traditional chick flick.
Austen wrote six novels and The Jane Austen Book Club is about six people who meet to discuss them over the course of six months. 666. Coincidence? I think not.
The Jane Austen Book Club is both a testament to Austen's continued relevance and a fine example of classroom particulars converted into entertaining banter without losing any oomph.
Extras on the disc include a full-length audio commentary by several members of the cast and crew.
If you're prepared to sit through a lot of mediocrity in search of a few worthwhile moments and a couple of actors who rise above the material, then you might be satisfied.
You have the sense and sensibility that this could have been more penetrating than it is.
This is definitely engineered to appeal to Austen fans, but the characters feel less sincere than their literary counterparts...
The premise lives or dies on the gamble that you can perform a dramatic transplant of the Austen moral and cultural sensibility from the prim etiquette of 19th century drawing room England to today's flighty LA swingers.
Breaking up, jealousies, match making and a bid for second chances are the themes of this vibrant and uplifting film that explores life, love and desire.
Charming, funny and romantic.
These ladies have too much time on their hands if the only thing they worry about is finishing their reading assignment in time for their next bout of well-heeled lusting.
The contrivance is horrible, the schmaltz unpardonable.
THIS beautifully acted story is, underneath it all, a fairly formulaic chick flick.
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