The Jane Austen Book Club: Competently Personable

Every now and again, it's good to watch a movie outside your comfort zone. That's why I'm going straight from reviewing Mortal Kombat II to writing about this, the first movie that came up when I used that recommend me a random movie tool. My brothers looked at me funny when I told them what I was watching, but while it isn't a movie I would have sought out on my own power, The Jane Austen Book Club is a personable drama that juggles many different parts and somehow makes them all click. It's occasionally overstuffed and sometimes leans on its cheesier elements in a barely concealed bid to elicit our good memories of other movies, but this adaptation of Karen Joy Fowler's 2004 novel has all the wit and charm needed to overshadow its lesser tendencies, courtesy of a deadly-accurate sense of humor and wonderful performances from all involved. It's not the most original movie ever made, but I think it's unfair to demand a martini from the Coke machine.

The similarities between the lives of the book club members and those of the characters in Mrs. Austen's novels are its big draw, a concept pulled from the recommended shelf in the books-for-moms section at Barnes & Noble. It is one big metaphor for the mistakes these characters make and the steps they'll need to take to put their lives back together, making this book club a sort of "therapy" where everyone brings their problems and trades them in for new ones and coffee. The little things about the movie are largely what make it work, from its remarkable wit to the small but unique idiosyncrasies of everyone in the club. The drama is relatively straightforward he-said-she-said, but the cast’s relatability makes it shine, even if there are too many characters and too little runtime. Through thick and thin, Book Club sticks to its identity as a movie made for women. 

I'm sure you remember how uncomfortable lunch line gossip could get, and there's a tongue-in-cheek awkwardness to this movie's drama that doesn't try too hard to be funny. This restraint is quickly evident in an early, hilariously self-conscious scene where people tenderly touch a casket at what seems to be a normal funeral, only for the camera to pan over and reveal a portrait of a dog beside the coffin. Book Club is uncomfortable to the point of being funny, and that's the idea. Embarrassment is universal, and this movie taps into those deep discomforts in a cathartic way. Yes, its brilliant, unspoken implications are the type to have a young man stare at the "gay teenagers club" logo on an attractive young woman's cleavage-bearing top. It can be an awkward movie, but awkward in a "laugh-about-it-in-five-years" way.

This is a romantic comedy, and anyone who's ever had the hots for anybody will appreciate its willingness to talk about how inelegant attraction can be. These literally me gags are the humor that much of Book Club is built around, and because we can all relate to them so well, it works. Just like in real life, not everyone in the club is going through relationship drama, but they all seem to have one distinctly irritating and inelegant habit of their own, different in name only. Their bickering usually takes the form of a barely-there politeness that intentionally borders on sarcasm, though it gradually begins to develop into genuine care for and understanding of each other. Their conflicts are petty, amusing, and very real, and they keep you on your toes, wondering who's going to start drama with whom. As the movie wears on and we begin to move past mere pleasantries, the heavier-hitting problems of actual substance begin to appear in these characters' lives, and because we've had time to sit with them and become familiar with their petty gripes, their real issues seem that much more urgent.

However, no one will call this movie perfect, and its overlarge cast sometimes prevents it from functioning as a cohesive story with a clear goal. Book Club is not long enough to fully filter through all this drama in a way that feels balanced, and each club member feels as though they're competing with the others for space. It can be convoluted and hard to follow through its maze of multiple different subplots, though I commend it for giving its characters real emotional closure, if in a straightforward, predictable way. Its premise can also start to get a little groan-worthy the more it turns a Jane Austen novel into an allegory for a character's life, though I'll admit that, on some levels, the allegory works. 

In a broader sense, books are often seen as an escape from social media, and this movie is quietly interested in how attached we were becoming to technology in 2007, before social media exploded into what we know and even fear today. Its opening moments are a frantic compilation of the hustle and bustle of modern life, an effective sequence that might just make you want to pick up a book to escape the chaos; this is one of the movie's bigger ideas, that the simple things in life are an escape from an overwhelming novelty. Although, of course, interpersonal drama is inescapable, and it will follow you to even your nobler habits. This movie spans several months, and each month, the club reads a new book and comes up with new ways to argue with each other. It's not even the most original drama ever made, but its characters still feel like real people with real lives and real interests, and they are what matter.

The Jane Austen Book Club doesn't want to explore beyond its genre's cliches, willingly wrapping itself in them like a colorful coat it wears with pride while checking off the relatively ordinary goals it sets its mind to, one after another. It often feels like wrapping up in a warm blanket with a hot drink at day's end. It doesn't worry about making you think too much about what it does; it takes more interest in causing you to relive, in your own life and your own memories, feelings it shares with you. This is a movie meant to be approachable; its wide selection of characters targets a broader audience, and on that level, it consistently hits the really big and hard-to-miss bull’s-eye.

The Jane Austen Book Club - 8/10

Matthew 18:15-18