“It
is very seldom I have seen a bad performance by an actor in a film” was
what I wrote in a previous review this past week and then today that
‘very seldom’ reared its head in “Austenland” where there are 2, I hope,
purposely bad and 3 just plain bad performances.  The latter are by
actresses who will remain nameless as I don’t think they will put this
film on their resume and not many will see them.

Keri
Russell gives a lively performance as Jane who has come to find her
Darcy, here called Henry Nobley and played by JJ Feild in an assured
performance, in “Austenland”, sort of a full Jane Austen resort. His
rival, Martin, (Bret McKenzie) seems to have wandered in from D. H.
Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” as the masculine caretaker. Talk
about ‘masculine’, enter Navy very hard body stud Captain George East
(Ricky Whittle) who, deservedly, takes off his shirt at any opportunity
or just having the camera on him!

The
screenplay by the director Jerusha Hess and Shannon Hale, who also
wrote the ‘chick-lit’ bestseller of the same name, is all over the place
being neither a homage to Jane Austen, a romance-comedy or even
sticking to the fantasyland idea intruding with a modern soundtrack.

The
bottom line is that if you have never read Jane Austen’s “Pride and
Prejudice”, or one of her other novels, you would be better off reading
them or if you have read any of her books reread them and stay away from
this movie. It is not a bad movie, even though it has some embarrassing
performances, but it does not deliver on the major premise.