Coincidentally opening here on the same day as movies adapted from stories by popular living novelists - Maeve Binchy (How About You) and Monica Ali (Brick Lane) - The Jane Austen Book Club throws together avid admirers of the English writer who died 190 years ago and whose six novels have proved a magnet for film producers.
Set in Sacramento, California, the film assembles six characters (one for each Austen novel) in a book club that becomes a support group for them. Five are women dealing with personal problems: a six-time divorcee (Kathy Baker); a librarian (Amy Brenneman) whose husband (Jimmy Smits) leaves her after 32 years; their lesbian daughter (Maggie Grace), who's in a difficult relationship; a dog breeder (Maria Bello) who leads a lonely life; and a prim teacher (Emily Blunt) unhappily married to a football fanatic who thinks Austen is the capital of Texas.
The token male (Hugh Dancy) in the book club is a perky young computers expert who knows little more about Austen and prefers science fiction.
Whatever initial promise the screenplay shows is soon squandered in a succession of unlikely narrative contrivances, as the women are guided through life by asking themselves, "What would Jane do?" - which is even heavy- handedly spelled out on a traffic signal when the teacher is about to embark on an affair with a student (Kevin Zegers).
This cloying movie, which owes as much to self-help manuals as it does to Austen's books, is all too eager to please, as it views its characters through a rose-tinted lens. It marks an undistinguished directing debut for screenwriter Robin Swicord, who has specialised in literary adaptations such as Little Women (1994), Memoirs of a Geisha and Matilda.
