I liked the Jane Austen Book Club, it was a really charming tale of 6 people (5 women and 1 male) that get together to read Jane Austin's complete works. But it's really not as much about Jane Austin, but rather the intricacies of relationships between men and women. Having one male to give the masculine point of view to the females in the group was the balance. Of course he (Hugh Dancy) joins the group at 1st to get closer to a woman (Maria Bello) in the group that he met, not knowing she's actually trying to set him up with her friend (Amy Brenneman) that's going through a divorce. The other women in the group are all dealing with various relationship problems from a lesbian breakup to a woman who believes her husband is having an affair, and actually wants to compensate for this by being attracted to a younger man. OK, OK yes it is a chick flick, but as a male you might want to watch it to see what makes women tick (LOL). They try to imply that Austin's characters are timeless because they continue to apply to the people of this decade as well as when they were written in the 1800s. But it's not a silly comparison, just brief mentions of certain characters and then you see how they might fit into one of the dysfunctional relationships all these women seem to be in at the moment. It's light, it's touching, it's make believe. Hugh Dancy is charming as the single male in the group, and of course we women see him as a male we could relate to and love. Whereas Jimmy Smits as the cheating husband going through the divorce who now wants to come back to the marriage he left was a bit of a woman's fantasy about divorced men(definitely not reality). Emily Blunts portrayal of the frustrated woman who's tempted to have an affair with a younger man when her husband doesn't pay enough attention to her or her likes (i.e., the Austin books) is stereotypical , and then throw in a lesbian relationships just to let people know that gay relationships are very similar to straight relationships with all their complexity. But it works in this movie.

In California, the favorite dog of the lonely Jocelyn (Maria Bello) dies and she meets her best friends in the funeral: the six times divorced Bernadette (Kathy Baker); the housewife Sylvia (Amy Brenneman) and her lesbian daughter Allegra (Maggie Grace); and the young French teacher Prudie (Emily Blunt), whose mother is a dysfunctional woman.When Sylvia's husband Daniel (Jimmy Smits) dumps her for a younger woman, Bernadette and Jocelyn organize a reading club of Jane Austen to distract her with Allegra and Prudie. Meanwhile the sci-fi fan Grigg (Hugh Dancy), who owns a software company and was raised with three sisters, flirts with Jocelyn and she invites him to join the club with the intention of introducing him to Sylvia. They plan to read and discuss the novels "Sense and Sensibility" (1811), "Pride and Prejudice" (1813), "Mansfield Park" (1814), "Emma (1816), "Northanger Abbey" (1818) and "Persuasion" (1818), one per month.Meanwhile, Prudie's marriage with Dean (Marc Blucas) is in crisis and she flirts with the student Trey (Kevin Zegers). Aleggra falls in love for Corinne (Parisa Fitz-Henley) and tells her private life to her affair. But Jocelyn does not understand the feelings of Grigg. While reading the novels, their lives entwine with the characters of the writer, leading each one of them to find what is looking for in love."The Jane Austen Book Club" is a delightful film for common viewers, but certainly wonderful for Jane Austen's fans. The story about love, second chance and Jane Austen novels has one of the most pleasant and charismatic cast that I have ever seen, with very beautiful and charming mature and young actresses and great actors having top-notch performances. In the end, the film gives the desire of reading Jane Austen's novels. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Clube de Leitura de Jane Austen" ("The Jane Austen's Reading Club")

The rented DVD had tags of this being an all-star rom com. Those two words normally, especially when in conjunction with each other sends me running to the hills.With some preconceived notion that, by its very title and the nature of the 'club' in question, I felt this would be lifted up and above the usual trite that passes off as a humorous romantic movie these days.So - it wasn't quite as I expected, but then it wasn't as bad as I expected it could be, once I (sort of) knew what to expect.... Follow? It makes perfect sense that a cross-section (mostly women) of Californian people with time to spare and quite a few loose ends in their lives to tie up would follow Austen as their chosen book club author. That it doesn't try too hard to either be high-brow literature or an out and out banal people-in-need-of-therapy (a few don't, actually) sob session makes it all gently perceptive. How a common theme, which could be anything ie ten-pin bowling, can become a focal point in which folk can socialise and hopefully, put their lives into perspective. That that subject is in fact a world-loved and world-known author whose characters are so everyday, they can be transferred, by type, a few centuries forward and interwoven into the lives of readers any time - and anywhere. Just for the record, I'm not a follower of Jane Austen's works but do know the salient titles and a few of the key characters and I'm sure if you do, you'd get more from the film than maybe I did. Admittedly, I didn't recognise many (if any) of the cast but found the entire viewing experience a refreshing, often witty one that thankfully desisted obvious stereotyping. In short, yes worth the modest rental fee and for those who like such stuff, but with an added intelligence, go for it.

I originally thought that the movie would be about people talking about Jane Austen novels and then flashing back to scenes from the novel. As I generally like movies from Jane Austen novels, I thought it would be great. However, after I bought the DVD, my wife informed me that it was just women talking about the novels and she suggested that I wouldn't like it. After about a year on my shelf, I slipped it in the DVD player, expecting to stop it after ten or twenty minutes.I was quite surprised that I easily got through the whole thing. The characters became more and more interesting as the movie went on and I enjoyed the layering of the different emotions and stories.For me, the ensemble cast was good, but Kathy Bates, Maria Bello, and Emily Blunt stood out, especially Emily Blunt. She was acting on a much more intense level than any of the other characters. While everyone else was doing "MidSummer's Night Dream," she was doing "MacBeth." This mixture of light, light, dark, actually made the movie much more interesting and gave it a realistic flavor. I think Emily should have gotten a supporting actress Oscar nomination. It was an intense and beautiful performance.I always promise myself after watching a Jane Austen movie that I am going to read the novels when I get a chance. After this one, I'm really going to do it. After I finish reading Harriet Beacher's Stowe's, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Kafka's "America," and Richardson's dreadful "Pamela," "Sense and Sensibility" is next on my classic novels list.