[AUSTENLAND opens in Cleveland on Friday September 12th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]
Review by Pamela Zoslov
Review by Pamela Zoslov
I'll be honest: I never really got the
obsession with Jane Austen. I read the novels required in high school
and college – Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey,
some others I've forgotten — and found nothing magical in
their themes of love and courtship among the landed gentry and
genteel poor in 18th-century England. I realize Austen's prose is
prized for its ironic tone and wry view of marriage as a way of
elevating a young woman's social standing, but if I want social
satire, I'll take Anita Loos. I have never been a fan of costume
drama, and the “Janeite” cult that has spawned innumerable Austen
film adaptations and meta-books and movies about women
obsessed with Austen, eludes me.
I can understand, though, why Jane
Hayes, the heroine of AUSTENLAND, is
fixated on Austen's novels, in particular the aloof romantic ideal of
Mr. Darcy as portrayed by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride
and Prejudice. Jane (charming Keri
Russell of Waitress)
is in her thirties, unmarried, and all her boyfriends have been
disappointing. None of them, of course, can compare to the fictional
Fitzwilliam Darcy, a life-size cardboard standup of whom — in the
guise of the chin-challenged Colin Firth — stands proudly in Jane's
frilly, Austen-bedecked bedroom. So frustrated by Jane's fixation is
one suitor that he hauls off and punches Firth's smug paperboard
face.
AUSTENLAND
is adapted from Shannon Hale's novel of the same title, a
breezy “chick lit” story that has Jane Hayes inheriting from her
wealthy aunt a paid trip to Austenland, a kind of Jane Austen theme
park offering an immersive “Austen experience” at an English
country estate, complete with Regency gowns and manners, pheasant
hunting, needlepoint, games of whist, and a simulated romantic happy
ending with one of several hired actors. The movie was directed and
co-scripted (with the book's author) by Jerusha Hess, creator with husband Jared Hess of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, and
the pairing of her absurdist sensibility with the novel's light
premise is promising. Humorous energy pervades the opening, which
dispenses with the story of Jane's aunt's bequest and has Jane, in
romantic desperation, spending her last dollar on the Austenland
adventure, with the help of a sleazy-looking travel agent reminiscent
of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE's stuck-in-the-'70s uncle.
Hess' absurdist
style surrenders all too quickly to bland silliness as we meet Jane's
fellow Austenland visitor, a blowsy middle-aged doyenne calling
herself “Miss Elizabeth Charming.” Elizabeth, who is looking for
sexy fun rather than an Austen experience, is played by Jennifer
Coolidge, whose outsize manner and looks have added amusing
punctuation to several Christopher Guest comedies. Coolidge's
character here, spouting witless lines in a stagy Eliza Doolittle
accent, is cartoonish rather than funny, though I did laugh when she
gushed, “Look, a car from the 1800s!”
Elizabeth and Jane
are whisked off to the estate and Jane learns from the evil
proprietess, Mrs. Wattelsbrook (Jane Seymour), that because she's
paid only for the basic package, her accommodations are considerably
more humble than the others guests'. Each client is given a scripted
narrative, and Jane, owing to her lack of funds, is cruelly cast as
“an orphan of no fortune.” She's dubbed “Miss Erstwhile” —
another way of saying “has-been” — and relegated to sleeping in
the servants' quarters and wearing drab gray gowns. Jane's
experience, it seems, is to be more Jane Eyre than Jane Austen.
The
gentlemen who populate this fantasy retreat are Col. Andrews (James
Callis), Mr. Wattlesbrook (Rupert Vansittart), the proprietess'
old, libidinous husband; and Mr. Henry Nobley (JJ Feild), the
supercilious “Mr. Darcy” type. Jane, ostracized by the other
guests and players, takes her romantic fantasy where she finds it, in
the arms of the stable hand, Martin (Bret McKenzie). Jane thinks
she's having a defiant“off-plan” romance as Martin shares with
her his love of Billy Ocean songs and enables her to witness the
birth of a foal — “the miracle of life” he says in his New
Zealand accent that Jane somehow mistakes for British. After
enlisting Elizabeth to fancy up her hair and gowns, Jane becomes an
object of desire, pursued by some of the other actors, including Mr.
Nobley. Who is real and who is acting in what Nobley calls “a
dangerous game”? In this story, the lines between fiction and
reality are blurred.
The
funny movie that resides in this premise, suggested by a goofy end-credits
sequence set to Nelly's “Hot in Here,” is never quite realized.
The film is wobbily paced and only fitfully amusing, relying too heavily on Coolidge's malapropisms and heaving bosom. And yet the movie has
its charms – a likeable cast, a zesty spirit and a romantic
optimism that's balm for the spiritually wounded. 2 1/2 out of 4 stars.
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