Dusting Off The Shelf: Letter A

3 Jan

Starting a new series of posts this year… the goal being a post every week. I’ll be doing a movie review of sorts, picking a title out of my DVD collection (at least until I run out of titles!) that I’ve never seen… and each week I’ll be following the alphabet. So… to start off, I’m picking Austenland.

I have a bad habit of adding to my collection and then never watching the movie… so this exercise will help me fix that problem a little bit. Some things could be awesome- but I know for a fact some of the titles suck. So this should be fun!

Feel free to rec other titles for each letter in the comments!

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Synopsis: Jane (Keri Russell) is a 30something with a bit of an obsession with Mr. Darcy from “Pride & Prejudice”, and basically all things Jane Austen. When life continues to throw lemons in front of her, she decides to splurge and spend her life savings (and apparently sell her Tercel) to take a vacation to Austenland in order to live her out her Austen fantasies. Along the way she makes friends with another guest, Miss Elizabeth Charming (Jennifer Coolidge) and flirts with not one but two men! Scandal! Finally Jane realizes that it’s time to grow up, and let her literary fantasy go, in order to find out who she really is and what she really wants.

“I am single because apparently the only good men are fictional!”

“You were right, this is a dangerous kind of game, and I don’t want to play anymore. I want something real.”

Why I chose this film: I’ve loved Jane Austen’s works since high school- read most of the books and seen several of the films (not all the versions, though). And on my visit to England many years ago, I was able to tour Jane Austen’s home. What I’m saying is that the idea of this film- a story of single 30-something, loving Austen’s works, and trying to deal with life- kind of fit, ya know? I’m not a huge Keri Russell fan (never got into Felicity, sorry) but she seemed to be playing a fish out of water and that amused me.

Will I watch it again: When they get to the behind the scenes stuff, the “actors” having time off- I laughed so hard because I know actors at places like “Austenland” and they are exactly like that when they can get away from the fans. Additionally, when Jane decides to take over the “storyline” of her vacation… O.M.G! So basically, yes- I found the first half hour or so a little blech, but once the story finally kicked it up a notch it was quite enjoyable.

“You’re the resident Mr. Darcy, you’re every girls fantasy.”

Why you should watch it too (or run far away!): If you enjoy ridiculous RomComs, Jane Austen, or have nothing better to do, then you might like this one. But if you really want a good story, I’d stick with the BBC/Colin Firth, Pride & Prejudice.