Stars:
*** 1/2
Rating: PG-13 for
language, sexual content and mature themes
Run
Time: 1
hour, 45 minutes
Conventional
comedy segues into poignant melodrama in the capable hands of director Robin
Swicord.
I shudder
at the term “chick flick” but “Jane” is a shining example of the genre,
resplendent with feminine energy yet gently tweaking its masculine side.
For some,
reading Austen is a literary minefield, but not for the devoted ladies who
throw together an Austen book club on a wing and a prayer. They arrive at this
place fresh from their painful places; Sylvia (Amy Brenneman) from a husband
who prefers a co-worker to his wife, uptight schoolteacher Prudie (Emily Blunt)
who’s questioning her own young union and commitment-phobe dog-breeder Jocelyn
(Maria Bello).
Rounding
out the Austen-ites is free-spirited founder Bernadette (Kathy Baker), Sylvia’s
lesbian daughter Allegra (Maggie Grace) and, horrors, a male software geek
named Grigg (Hugh Dancy) who was invited as a lark.
The
narrative treads lightly through the club’s escalating loves and hurts
overlapping Austen’s ironic surveys of the privileged; not-so-strange
bedfellows when you consider Austen’s penchant for the great potential of
romance and the human spirit.
The warmth
and camaraderie captures much of the Austen spirit. Not to mention that of the
novel by the same name. Where’s there’s genuine sexual and emotional tension –
surprise! – there’s also some spare and streamlined pacing. The ensemble cast
shape-shifts with community and bonhomie with an eye to the notion of bonds.
Although not
the classic of its namesake’s novels “Jane” is a perfectly polished charmer.