To Austenland and Back to Reality

I have been posting about it  for a while on My Jane Austen Book Club facebook page: pictures, news, trailers, clips, interviews,  whatever I could find about it. Expectations and anticipations grew my wish to see it. Now it is time to write my review. Ready to join me to Austenland ? 

I was really curious about this movie - though I haven't read the book so far -  so I watched it as soon as I grabbed my copy of the DVD and it was an actually funny ride through Austen-fandom-fairy-land. What do
I mean? I'm hinting at the fact that this movie is really a trip to a world Austen fans can sympathize with. Not a journey through Jane Austen's prim and proper Regency World,  but a trip into the contemporary world of a certain fandom and of a certain market which overtly exploits the devotion of certain fans.
Forgive me the repetition but it's definitely wanted. This is a movie for Austen fans about an Austen fan. It  is improbable this film might be enjoyed and understood by someone who's not suffering from at least the slightest form of "Austenesque sympathy".
Because, think about it,  can you smile at a parody if you don't know anything of its target or catch the irony of something if you don't recognize its tone?
This is why I bet many Austen fans, can sympathize with Jane Hayes and won't get offended by the prevailing comedic tone director Jerusha Hess chose for her retelling of Shannon Hale's novel, Austenland. 

As for myself, I liked it.  It was foolishly delicious or deliciously foolish but I did like it. Romantic and  hilarious, I couldn't ask for more from a comedy dealing with romance, with being a devoted Austen addict to the extent of making it a dangerous fixation, with being a woman looking for a Mr Darcy-like dream man in real life. Lightness and parody, beautiful locations and regency costumes, dashing flirting men in breeches who,  as romantic as Jane Haynes and me,  wouldn't give it a try? Once you've made it clear to yourself, that that is what it's all about, you can relax, focus on the funny details and let your guards down: you'll smile or you'll even laugh out loud.
Jane Hayes (Keri Russell) ,  a thirty-something single New Yorker,  is lost in love stories, obsessed with the BBC mini-series of Pride and Prejudice and looking for her very own Mr. Darcy. She invests all her savings in a vacation to an exclusive resort in England called Austenland. This resort lets people dress in Regency period clothes, play whist and croquet and flirt, that is to say, play a very dangerous game. Would I ever do the same? Nope, not even if they paid me a fortune. No way,  if like in Jane's case, they asked me for money. If I must be honest, that was a disturbing element which distracted me from fully enjoying the fun: women paying to flirt with handsome men? I don't think Jane Austen would approve. I see her frowning disapprovingly from her little writing desk up there where she is now. No, no, no.
Anyway, apparently, Jane Hayes,  the lovely protagonist of the movie, doesn't go to Austenland to flirt and is  rather annoyed by the fact that dashing and brooding Mr Nobley (J. J. Feild) tries to pretend he is interested in her only because he is supposed to be doing so in the role he plays ...
Fortunately, Martin (Bret McKenzie) is someone honest and not performing the role of a suitor at the mansion. Not an actor but a servant. Could Jane resist his charm? It is not so easy for our lovely Austen addict to distinguish between appearence and reality and to decide whom she can trust.  
Her journey back home will be out of disappointment. Jane is resigned to renounce her dream of finding a Mr Darcy in real life.
 But can an Austen-inspired movie renounce its happy ending? 
My advice is: if you haven't seen it yet, give it a try. Don't expect too much, but free your mind from prejudices. I'm sure you'll find something to like.
For full cast and more info see Austenland at imdb
Buy Austenland DVD at amazon.com or amazon.co.uk