A group of women and one man form a book club devoted to Jane Austen novels only to find their own love lives taking on the shape of those classic romances.
As someone familiar with Jane Austen, this movie definitely falls into the category of smart chick-flicks. It's got heartbreak, male-female dynamics, sex, and a certain sweetness to it that I found positive. However, it wasn't perfect.
Because the movie focuses on so many characters, there's bound to one that slips into the cracks. In this movie, it was the lesbian daughter of one of the main women. It made her seem like a childish bed-hopper who finds random women on the sets of her numerous injuries. A certain montage of the relationships shows her and her current girlfriend as if we were just as invested in her love life as we were in the other character's, when really we feel like it's just another doomed one-night stand. It made lesbian relationships seem shallow.
I loved Hugh Dancy. He had the perfect balance of being physically attractive and yet non-threatening, creating an adorable sci-fi geek who is eager to experience everything and totally comfortable to sit around on a patio with older women. Alas, men like him do not really exist. Emily Blunt was another of my favorite's as well, though she did struggle with her character's writing, it was very hard to make her character likeable, but with a face like Blunt's, who could see her crying and not jump up to comfort her? Seriously.
This movie was like a shooting star - it was quick, its star trail quickly fades, but while it lasted, it was completely charming and hopeful. It wasn't bogged down by crudity or sex jokes, it was about romance and the pursuit of love in all its missteps and victories. It was a movie that makes me smile.
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