The Jane Austen Book Club

This film reads like the who’s who of Emmy Awards of prime time television, from Kathy Baker of the old series “Picket Fences”, and “Cold Mountain,” and Amy Brenneman of “Judging Amy,” to Jimmy Smits of “NYPD Blues”, and the new comers Maggie Grace (“The Fog”) and the always excellent Emily Blunt of “The Devil Wears Prada” fame, not to mention the one actress Hollywood owes an Oscar® to, Maria Bello who is the queen of indie films like “The Cooler” and “A History of Violence,” with small appearances by Lynn Redgrave’s, and Nancy Travis—it is completely and effortlessly done as far as the acting goes. The characters are soft and not too intense, except for Emily Blunt’s character Prudie who is so tightly wound she looks as if she’ll decompose any minute.

The center of the story is made up of the friendship between the women and the one man in the book club; they all get together and discuss the novels and pretty soon you realize they aren’t talking about the characters in the books but about their own lives, with quips thrown at themselves and each other without offending one another. They are full of love and acceptance, with no judgment of each other, their behavior and their choices in life styles. One character a young woman named Allegra, played by Maggie Grace, is a lesbian, and she goes from the end of one relationship to another before the movie is even half over. The mention of her being a lesbian is done in such a way as to not even notice it, as if they were talking about a normal one, between a man and a woman, and no one says any thing negative about it.

The same can be said about the fact that one character’s husband leaves her for another woman he’s been sleeping with for six months, after he informs his wife over dinner that he’s divorcing her. One character has been married six times, another wants to sleep with her student, yet another’s husband has had an affair, while her daughter is in a lesbian relationship in which she is also unhappy. The world has always offered the “don’t judge any one” advice, “we are to love every one and judge no one, if it feels good do it, it must be right if it makes you happy.”

However, God has so much more to offer us than empty relationships; He is very clear in His word in 1 Corinthians 7:2. Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Then in Mathew 5:27-28 he states “You have heard that it was said to those of old you shall not commit adultery but I say to you that who ever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Loneliness is found at every turn when Christ is not at the center of our lives, for as long as we are in His will, every thing will fall in its place, our marriages, our relationships.

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While this film is well acted and is a good study in the perils of dating and divorce, mothers and daughters, and relationships, in general, I would not recommend it, especially to younger viewers, though it has a PG-13-rating.

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