Hello all, and welcome back to another movie review. This week, I took a different venture as far as what kind of movie I wanted to see. Also, I only had about a two-and-a-half hour time window to watch a movie on Tuesday, so instead of going to a Cinemark or an AMC, I went indie. Here in Dallas, the Angelika Film Center offers independent films (and the occasional showing of "This Is The End") for around the same price, or cheaper, than bigger multiplexes. I decided to head over there and it is here where I saw "Austenland".
"Austenland" stars Keri Russell as Jane Hayes, a woman smitten with the works of Jane Austen, primarily "Pride And Prejudice." Actually, to say she's smitten is an understatement: a life-size cutout of Mr. Darcy stands as the crown jewel of her living room, she recites every line as the BBC movie plays, and of course, she rocks the "I <3 Mr. Darcy" purse. After a bad breakup, she longs for that type of simple romance, so she takes a vacation to Austenland, a fantasy camp where she can experience life in the setting of Austen's novels and even have the chance to live out her Darcy dream. However, as she spends more time in the camp, she finds there may be a reason why those kinds of novels don't always translate well in the real world.
"Austenland" takes influence from romance novels, but while trying to channel "Pride and Prejudice", it draws more from harlequin romances that the book inspired. By doing so, the movie takes its appreciation and parodies the romance genre as a whole, not just Austen's novels. For the most part, the exaggeration works. The overstuffed sets and over-the-top characters create an anachronistic trip that helps convey the general setting and mood of the source material while also pointing out the flaws and oddities of such a genre. For comedy, it works well.
However, the problem with exaggeration is its ability to imbalance. Throughout the first half of the movie, the exaggeration of characters and setting is the focus. Less time is spent with Jane and her reactions to being in her own view of paradise; rather, the movie spits out overly pompous dialogue and comic relief. The stereotypes take over, leaving Jane to observe everyone naively in the corner. There is a scene where Jane steps into a ballroom and imagines herself dancing in the ball. Before this scene, Jane's been relatively quiet, mostly observing the zaniness of the other guests and workers at the camp. However, she has time now to start getting involved in her fantasy, start building her dream come true. She gets to dance and imagine for about a minute...and then it's over. Cut to a scene of everyone eating. That's it? She barely gets any time to invest herself in this setting and become swept up in the fantasy, so since the audience is following Jane through the story, the audience doesn't get a chance to vicariously become invested and swept up in the world.
"Austenland" is adapted from the Shannon Hale novel, and I feel it suffers the main problem many adaptations face. The movie feels as if the screenwriter looked at the novel and decided to take just the scenes that would suffice in telling the story as bare-boned as possible. By doing this, the movie lacks transition, feeling choppy. It flows less like a full narrative and more like a slideshow, jumping from scene to scene with no time for the characters (and audience) to breathe and take in the full scope of what's been developing. For comedy, the fast pace and exaggeration works relatively well, but when it's overdone, the pacing of the story suffers, leaving me bored for a good chunk of the middle of the movie.
I wouldn't say "Austenland" is a horrible flick by any means. The romantic parodies got a couple laughs out of me, Keri Russell is enjoyable as Jane develops through the latter half of the movie, and there are some damn funny side characters, that while distracting, helped out with the slower parts (in particular, check out Colonel Andrews (James Callis), he's a fabulous riot). If you're a fan of Jane Austen novels, romantic comedies, or even like taking that same genre down a couple notches, come in with the right frame of mind, and I think you'll like it okay.
"Austenland" trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbHr8YyjSlg
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