THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB
Year: 2007
USA: Sony Pictures Classics
UK: Sony Pictures Releasing
Cast: Kathy Baker, Maria Bello, Emily Blunt, Amy Brenneman, Hugh Dancy, Maggie Grace, Lynn Redgrave, Jimmy Smits, Marcus Blucas, Kevin Zegers, Parisa Fitz-Henley, Gwendolyn Yeo, Nancy Travis, Myndy Crist, Ed Brigadier, Catherine Schreiber, Graham Norris, Ned Hosford, Messy Stench, Chris Burket, Stephanie Denise Griffin, Kurt Bryant, Russ Jones, Michelle Ewin, Miguel Najera
Director: Robin Swicord
Country: USA
USA & UK: 105 mins
USA Rated: PG-13 for mature thematic material, sexual content, brief strong language and some drug use
UK Certificate: 12A contains a single use of strong language and mild sex references
USA Release Date: 5 October 2007
USA Release Date: 21 September 2007 (Limited Release - New York and Los Angeles)
UK Release Date: 16 November 2007
Synopsis
Today's central California may be far removed from Regency England, but some things never change. We're still every bit as preoccupied with the complexities of marriage, friendship, romantic entanglements, position, and social manners as was Jane Austen at the turn of the 1800s. THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB reveals the lives of an ensemble of present-day friends through the witty prism of their literary heroine.
Six Californians meet on a monthly basis to discuss the novels of Jane Austen, one at a time. As they debate they reveal nothing so much as their own "private Austen(s)". Six book club members, six Austen books, six interwoven story lines over six months in the busy modern setting of Sacramento. As always in Austen, marriage, friendship, and finding one's rightful place in the world are the things that really matter. Based on the critically acclaimed novel of the same name by Karen Jay Fowler.
The members of the Jane Austen Book Club are:
Bernadette (Kathy Baker), whose life history is a paradox is in her mid-50s and solo. How could this warm, wise, earthy free spirit possibly have been married six times?
Sylvia (Amy Brenneman) is Jocelyn's lifelong friend; they even dated the same guy back in high school. Daniel (Jimmy Smits) has been married to Sylvia for 25 years and they have three children. But Daniel is in love with another woman and Sylvia is devastated at the demise of their marriage.
Sylvia and Daniel's 20 something daughter, Allegra (Maggie Grace), initially joins the book club just to support her mom. At a loose end romantically and professionally, she has an easy going personality but keeps her love of extreme sports from her mum.
Quite the opposite of easy-going is Prudie (Emily Blunt), whose neuroses are perilously close to the surface. A young high school French teacher, Prudie has recently married Dean (Marc Blucas). Dean is good-looking, loving and a total opposite to Prudie's sharp intellect and emotional neediness. That neediness leads back to Prudie's mother Sky (Lynn Redgrave), a relentlessly irresponsible aging-hippie pothead. Consequently Prudie is vulnerable to the flirtations of high-school senior Trey (Kevin Zegers). When Bernadette meets Prudie by chance, she spots her fragility and invites her to join the Jane Austen Book Club.
The sixth member of the Jane Austen Book Club - and the only male - is Grigg (Hugh Dancy), a geeky-cute techy in his early 30s whom Jocelyn meets in an elevator and sees Grigg as a potential younger-man diversion for Sylvia, but she's oblivious to the obvious: that Grigg's interest is focused on Jocelyn herself.