Austen Inspired Movies: Something Good, Something Useless

It's Friday again. How was your week? Mine was filled with chores, school work, deadlines but with a bit of  Jane Austen. As you know, I love watching movies, especially romantic comedies. If they are Austen–related or Austen-inspired, I literally can’t resist having a look, even when they are introduced to me as not very good. I hardly ever like what I insist on seeing after hearing negative comments,  but I feel the duty to give everything Austen a chance,  so I add  it to my “to be seen” list. This week I've watched one of these films and re-watched a good one I like.

A scene from The Jane Austen Book Club

I rewatched  The Jane Austen Book Club (2007) on satellite TV. After lunch, while I was doing the washing – up,  I recognized one of the dialogues coming out from the TV set while my son was distractedly zapping in search for a movie he could like.  “STOP there!”  I almost shouted and soon after:  “Please, find something else to do. And please, original language!” .  He changed the audio of the movie for me and left the lounge frowning and shaking his head: “Jane Austen!”

The Jane Austen reading group 

The Jane Austen Book Club is one of the few Austen-related modern comedies I really like.  It is a romantic film, so that's one of the reasons,  but what I most of all appreciate  is the story of the very special bond that reading Jane Austen creates between those very different  women: Jocelyn, Prudie, Bernadette, Sylvia and Allegra. These women have to cope with abandon and betrayal,  love and aging, neglect and marriage predicaments and they help each other while reading  Austen major novels and meeting once a month.
The female world is definitely prevailing in the plot but there are also nice male characters I came to love, like Trey (Kevin Zegers, on the left) or Grigg (Hugh Dancy below). Trey is the gorgeous , cheeky student on whom Prudie, the young French teacher,   has a crush. 
Grigg is the sweet and sensitive guy, who loves dogs and books,  whom Jocelyn recruits for the club and who takes his task of reading Austen quite seriously.
Grigg  actually accepts willingly because he is in love with one of the beautiful women in the reading club who, instead seems not to notice him at all if not as a possible distraction, a temptation,  for  her best friend Sylvia, who is coping with a difficult separation from her husband.  
I like Grigg because he  doesn’t pretend his interest in Austen's works,  he reads the books without any prejudice or preconception.  I love this character, not only because he has the charms of Hugh Dancy, but for what he is like. I don’t think there are many Griggs out there, though I like to think there are at least some rare specimens hidden somewhere for some very special women who will deserve them.  The second Austen movie I saw is Pride and Prejudice (2003) . It is a DVD I got from my dear friend K/V, who was really surprised I had never heard about it when she mentioned it to me in one of our recent meetings in Rome. She carefully tried to warn me: "There's almost nothing good in it, except a rather good-looking Darcy, but if you want it..."  I wanted it. And the result was ... great disappointment:  "Why did they need to do such an awful movie out of   a great book?"  I didn't like watching Clueless, which is said to be a great modernization of Emma, but compared to this one it is a real masterpiece.  I'm almost speechless, meaning I really don't know what to say about this movie., but, OK, I'll try to explain briefly: silly humour, shallow characters, mediocre acting. Can that be enough? What about the good - looking Darcy? He was ... nice. Anyway, if you want to know more about this movie, check it out at imdb.
HAPPY WEEKEND, EVERYONE!