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Sunday, December 02, 2007

A curmudgeonly film review

I went and saw the film The Jane Austen Book Club the other day. It's not a very good or a very interesting film, but it's different from all the other not very good or interesting films out, and that's the most you can hope for nowadays.

As the title suggests, the plot is about a group of people who get together to read Jane Austen. That's pretty much it, apart from the usual litany of couplings and uncouplings that you get in this sort of romantic comedy: Allegra who breaks up with one girlfriend and gets together with another; Prudi, who is thinking of having an affair with one of her students, but doesn't; Sylvia, whose husband breaks up with her, and then gets back together with her; and Jocelyn, whose deep moral insight by the end of the film consists in her learning that people are just as important as dogs.

The film has layers, but you could say the same thing about the styrofoam cake in the window of my local cake shop.

Occasionally, while all this sort-of plot is going on, ambient not-quite music wafts around in the background like a soundtrack that has escaped from a Woody Allen movie and doesn't know what to do with itself. The characters read tracts out of Jane Austen and exclaim in an enlightened fashion about how it relates to their life, and, zombie-like, develop an insatiable urge to bring in other friends into the club.

If sado-masochists enjoy non-spanking sex, then I enjoyed this film. Two non-committal stars out of five.

17 comments:

Shelley said...

Wow. Do you take notes when you see a film? I saw one this afternoon and can barely remember the name of it, Ian's surname, or then band he was in. Okay, I remember that it was Joy Division but that's about it. I seriously couldn't tell you the names of the rest of the characters/band though.

TimT said...

IMDB is my friend! Tho' I wonder what critics did before the internet and IMDB and Wiki and google...

Shelley said...

Took notes?

TimT said...

That sounds very complicated. The only thing more fangled than newfangled technology is oldfangled technology.

Shelley said...

Still, if you're going to go to the effort of writing lukewarm film reviews for somewhat less-than-lukewarm films you may as well embrace all fangles of technology.

Control was clearly a better movie. Bleak though, very bleak.

TimT said...

You'd think with a name like Joy Division...

Is this, like, an example of irony in action?

Shelley said...

Gee, I just don't know.

You seem to have all the answers, how about you tell me?

Anonymous said...

Grimness of film and music very much in keeping with grimness of band's name (a very grim piece of irony indeed , but then it is grim up north and especially in Manchester).

TimT said...

Struth.

Shelley said...

I thought everybody knew where the name came from.

TimT said...

Not me, obviously. I had been told but I forgot.

Shelley said...

I should, possibly, apologise for being rude and sarcastic then. I rather thought you were having a go. Sorry.

TimT said...

Oh dear, an apology is certainly not necessary! These little misunderstandings happen every now and then, etc.

TimT said...

*Takes another hearty spoonful of irony*

Shelley said...

Be careful or you'll overdose.

TimT said...

Either that or I'll get a condition like spindigestion or liar-betes.

Shelley said...

I think it might be too late.

Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

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