Austenland (2013)
Average Rating: 4.8/10
Reviews Counted: 97
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 67
Despite an intriguing premise and fine performances from a talented cast, Austenland succumbs to outworn romcom cliches and slapstick gags.
Average Rating: 4.6/10
Critic Reviews: 28
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 21
Despite an intriguing premise and fine performances from a talented cast, Austenland succumbs to outworn romcom cliches and slapstick gags.
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Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 4,062
Movie Info
Twilight author Stephanie Meyer makes her first foray into film producing with this romantic comedy about a 30-something woman whose lifelong obsession with all things Jane Austen lead her to an eccentric theme park based on the author's writings, and into the company of a handsome young suitor. For as long as she can remember, Jane Hayes (Keri Russell) has treasured the writings of the author behind such literary classics as Emma, and Pride & Prejudice. For years, Jane had been stashing away
Cast
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Keri Russell
Jane Hayes -
J.J. Feild
Henry Nobley -
Bret McKenzie
Martin -
Jennifer Coolidge
Miss Elizabeth Charm... -
Georgia King
Lady Amelia Heartwri... -
Jane Seymour
Mrs. Wattlesbrook -
Rupert Vansittart
Mr. Wattlesbrook -
James Callis
Col. Andrews -
Ricky Whittle
Captain George East -
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Austenland Trailer & Photos
All Critics (97) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (30) | Rotten (67)
The acting throughout falls into two registers; pantomime mugging for most of the cast, while the romantic leads, Russell and Feild, look so ill at ease that you pity them.
Top CriticAustenland is modest fun but needs to show it has a brain under its sun bonnet.
"Austenland" understands Austen's enduring romantic appeal but has no use for her deeper themes of class, wealth and gender inequality.
It's tentative in its intentions and afraid to push all the way with its premise. It is not sharp enough as a comedy, and when it tries to shift gears and become a romance, it is unconvincing in its machinations.
A mildly surprising and completely heartwarming ending casts a glow over the previous 96 minutes of "Austenland" but can't wipe out all regrets for what might have been.
Everything rings false, and the spectacle of bad actors pretending to be bad actors may trouble your sleep for some time.
Not only is it silly and twee, but it tries to present a "realistic" look at love that's just as corny as the romance it's making fun of.
It's generally lacking the wit and charm that Austen herself likely would have brought to the same material.
What might have made a five-minute skit becomes an extended exercise in taking a joke for a walk round a country house before allowing it to crap on the terrace and then stamping it to death on the manicured lawn.
Countless romantic comedies have looked to the novels of Jane Austen for inspiration, but you'd be hard pressed to find one so at odds with the author's spirit than the coarse, slapdash and painfully witless Austenland.
This pantomime farce is in good, hearty spirits ... it knowingly pokes fun at itself ... simply enjoy the outrageous buffoonery.
The enduring appeal of Jane Austen's England is explored in this uneven but often hilarious romp - a comedy, for once, aimed squarely at a female audience.
Simply by smiling, [Russell] robs one of the will to live.
Enough to make you burn all your Jane Austen.
You would be well advised to give a wide berth to this largely useless adaptation of a book by Shannon Hale.
Not remotely believable, it plays like a TV comedy sketch painfully over-extended.
Austenland, allow me to tell you how ardently I loathe and despise you.
So actively inept and so horribly precarious that it becomes curiously engrossing, like watching a monkey spin some plates or a blindfolded dog attempting to ride a unicycle.
Austenland has some nice ideas and a handful of amusing moments, but the direction and editing are poor, the acting is dodgy in places and the underdeveloped script fails to push any of the right buttons.
For a while, the film gets by on silliness alone. But in the end, it all amounts to no more than a sniggery guilty pleasure.
Fans of romantic fiction may enjoy this gimmicky comedy, which cleverly plays around with Jane Austen's fiction but kind of misses its own joke.
The hook consistently gives the whole film a most welcome dose of knowingly cheeky and absurdist humor, lending a most distinctive personality to the more conventional genre formula.
Too witless to be a decent comedy, too charmless to call itself a parody, this messy adap of Shannon Hale's novel groans under the weight of a predictable plot and explosive overacting ...
Surely any real aficionado of Jane Austen would reject the film's notion that the author's literary masterworks are essentially wish-fulfillment fantasies for women too timid for the red-blooded bodice-rippers of the Harlequin line.
Fondly conceived but short of that razor-sharp Jane Austen wit.
The characters are cranked up to 11 and as cardboard as the Colin Firth Mr Darcy cutout that lurks creepily in Jane's apartment.
Audience Reviews for Austenland
http://angryvader.blogspot.com/2013/10/austenland-2013.html
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- Miss Elizabeth Charming: What the H?
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