I wanted to like this film. It's a nice idea -- take a young American woman named Jane who is obsessed with Jane Austen's England, and put her in a reality holiday experience in the English countryside, set in Austen's era. But the movie, for me, doesn't work, and plods along with little thrill or pace, or indeed much plot. I almost walked out of the cinema, several times. The setting and costumes are fine and some of the actors such as Bret McKenzie and JJ Feild work well as handsome male leads. I felt Keri Russell was the wrong actor as the female lead. She seemed too pert and bland. She didn't have much chemistry with her love interests. But essentially I felt the script was the problem. It seemed to focus on creating individual, pretty scenes rather than connecting them in a clever way. It was flat, and needed perhaps the input of a comedian. It needed zing and wit. For example, there is a scene where everyone puts on a play, but it doesn't work. It doesn't make sense and it's not funny. Jennifer Coolidge, the buxom comedian from Legally Blonde, just wasn't as funny as she has been before on screen. Her scenes are rushed and not sharp enough -- it's the same with several other supporting characters. One woman is supposed to be a bad guy, but in most of her scenes she's quite sweet and helpful, so it doesn't make sense for her to suddenly turn into a villain. By the time the final scenes came around, I really didn't care what happened to Jane and that speaks volumes about the film.
Review of Austenland
