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Jane Austen Book Club, The
Sony Pictures Classics


6.3

based on 28 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 13 votes
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MPAA RATING: PG-13 for mature thematic material, sexual content, brief strong language and some drug use

Starring Maria Bello, Emily Blunt, Amy Brenneman, Kathy Baker, Hugh Dancy, Marc Blucas, Chris Burket, and Lynn Redgrave

Six book-club members, six Austen books, and six story-lines are interwoven over six months in the busy modern setting of Sacramento, where city and suburban sprawl meet natural beauty. While the contemporary stories never slavishly parallel the Austen plots, the six characters find echoes, predictions, warnings, and wisdom about their own trajectories within Austen's beloved narratives. (Sony Pictures Classics)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Karen Joy Fowler (book) Robin Swicord
DIRECTED BY:	Robin Swicord
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 5, 2008 Theatrical: September 21, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	105 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Chick Flick indeed! Guys, take your best buddy to see this movie. Tell him, "It's really cool, dude, even though there aren't any eviscerations."

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

An enjoyable if fairly predictable film.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Neither trite nor pandering, and that's what makes the film better than most of its peers.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

For a visual bonus, Hugh Dancy appears in bike shorts as the lone male Jane-ite.

Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson

Overall, The Jane Austen Book Club is an admirable mix of heady and fluffy, the kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy that needn’t make filmgoers ashamed of what they wished for.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The entire enterprise ultimately seems designed to turn Austen into a self-help guru.

USA Today Claudia Puig

This is Austen lite, but pleasantly so. You can hardly fault a movie that fashions itself around a consummate writer whose keen sense of humor and gift for fully realized characters have resulted in countless screen adaptations.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

The domestic and romantic turmoil all gets resolved a bit too neatly to seem realistic, but realism isn't the goal; this is comfort food, plain and simple, and achieves its modest goals in nearly effortless fashion.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Everyone is given their due and dignity in this funny, sexy, humanist film that, if it is a chick flick, gives the genre a good name.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Swicord has a playful sense of humor and a good ear for dialogue, and the movie pleasantly accomplishes what it set out to accomplish.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The film's characters are lively, the women all look terrific (the guys do too, for that matter), and its many romantic story threads weave into artfully told tales of love lost and found.

Variety Dennis Harvey

Cast is first-rate all around, unafraid to play up the annoying, insensitive or self-pitying aspects of their nonetheless likeable characters.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Such a well-acted, literate adaptation of Karen Joy Fowler’s 2004 best seller that your impulse is to forgive it for being the formulaic, feel-good chick flick that it is.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Swicord has enough savvy to conjure up a terrific cast that compensates for her rote direction.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Those who know Austen novels will recognize how much each character resembles a figure in one of them. Those who do not will enjoy the amusing types. Men, this means you.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

There are no surprises here, in other words, but there aren't supposed to be: This is a comfort film, the on-screen equivalent of mac and cheese - though with a splash of truffle oil to class things up.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Worth watching primarily for Blunt, the delicious scene-stealer from "The Devil Wears Prada."

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The novels remain a witty portrait of life; this flick is just a study in preciousness.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The film comes across like a soap opera and there are too many characters and storylines for any one of them to grab the heart and imagination. The film isn't painful but it is disappointing.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Perfectly pleasant, perfectly undistinguished adaptation of a market-driven novel about six Sacramento lovelies trying to mend their stalled or broken lives while massaging each other's feet.

Empire Angie Errigo

Quite a nice little relationship comedy-drama, but essentially for an audience of what the French charmingly call ‘women of a certain age’. Totally not the Superbad set, then.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

First-time director Swicord brews an atmosphere of geniality and warmth and brings a modicum of momentum to a happily discursive book.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

Though it’s as estrogenic as dong quai, this amiable adaptation of Karen Joy Fowler’s eponymous bestseller about six friends and their book club is thoughtfully rendered with a certain universality of spirit – in that sense not unlike the books of Jane Austen herself.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

There's no subtext to The Jane Austen Book Club, just a skim across the books' surface that winds up re-shelving a great author into the self-help section.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Being male, I can't relate to this at all; on the other hand, I don't need Midol either, but I'm glad it's on the market.

Premiere Ryan Stewart

Ultimately, The Jane Austen Book Club amounts to little more than a lukewarm collection of half-realized rom-com scenarios not fleshy enough to warrant their own movie.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

It's a lot like a pumpkin spice frappuccino with extra sugar and extra cream. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll leave with foam on your nose. So cute. As a friend said on the way out: At least no books were harmed in the making of this movie. And he's right. But that's only because no one really tried.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

It's almost impossible for a movie to go irrevocably wrong during the opening credits, but the ceaselessly irritating The Jane Austen Book Club does just that.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Pat C. gave it a1:
A very boring self satisfied and pretentious film.

Chad S. gave it a6:
Grigg(Hugh Dancy) is a science-fiction fan who tries to convince Jocelyn(Maria Bello), the literary snob, that a novelist like Ursula McGuinn is a good writer, period; not just a genre writer. "The Jane Austen Book Club" has an undeveloped academic side because there indeed are learned men and women who argue for speculative fiction as being undervalued. But the film doesn't back up its argument for genre fiction as literature, not if Grigg is going to say things like a one-volume compendium of Jane Austen novels as being sequels to "Northhanger Abbey", and that "The Empire Strikes Back"(George Lucas films being the low-end of sci-fi) shares a comparable plot point with "Pride and Prejudice". However, this film very subtly introduces the notion of the chick-flick as science fiction, especially when Prudie(Emily Blunt) convinces Dean(Marc Blucas) to read "Persuasion", patching up their unhappy marriage in the process. Literature can't save a marriage; a jock doesn't change his stripes overnight. What might've worked in the Karen Joy Fowler novel, doesn't all translate well on the screen.

Jorge M. gave it an8:
I did not read the book, but as a guy I enjoyed the film sooo much. Emily Blunt rules!

Duane D. gave it a7:
If you're expecting a great movie you'll be disappointed. But the plot is clever, the dialogue is amusing and the acting is better than this film deserves. It's entertaining and usually that's enough.

Steve T. gave it a9:
A classy adaptation of a highly readable novel. High marks to all involved.

Jim G. gave it a5:
Enjoyable for Austen fans.

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Jane Austen Book Club, The Sony Pictures Classics

Jane Austen Book Club, The
Sony Pictures Classics