Photo Courtesy Sony Pictures' Classics.

It has come to my attention recently that there is a bit of a Jane Austen fetish rampant alike amongst contemporary novelists and Hollywood producers insistent on creating an audience out of dedicated readers of the authoress' fiction. In one of the hundreds of contemporary novels out there that deal with Austen’s books or characters, there is one in which a book club consisting of five women and one man read “all Jane Austen, all the time,” and quite expectedly, they end up using the Austen tomes as somewhat of a guide to life. Three years after this Karen Fowler's The Jane Austen Book Club, was published and made its bestseller lists, a film was made.

The first thing that I noticed while watching the film was the casting. In Robin Swicord’s adaptation, the director decreased the ages of almost all of the characters; everyone is about 10-15 years younger than they were in the book. This was to me an obvious ploy to sex up the characters and plotlines, and it both worked and didn’t. In terms of creating a film that is based on the book, Swicord obviously failed. However, she did create a film that was better-received than it would have been, undoubtedly, had she followed the book. I am in favor of most of her choices, although some of them really didn’t work for me. First, Amy Brenneman, darling though she is in the role, could never be Sylvia Avila nee Sanchez. Sylvia was written as being heavily Latina, and Brenneman’s curly hair does not a Latina make. Secondly, Allegra as played by Maggie Grace is about as far away from a lesbian as you could get, and her girlfriend throughout most of the film, Corinne (Parisa Fitz-Henly) does not help matters. Maggie Grace has, in fact, been on the Maxim Hot 100 list and looks every bit the part; she’s not credible at all. In the book, Allegra is in her young thirties, and has short stylish hair and fits the idea of a lesbian, while Maggie Grace can’t even pass as a lipstick lesbian.

Maria Bello was also tough choice for me. To me, Bello will always be Lil in Coyote Ugly. The character Jocelyn is a bit of a badass, and Bello captures that well. However, the shawl-wearing, dog-breeding, afraid-of-the-treadmill aspects of the character are a bit harder to believe. I kept waiting for Jocelyn to bust out in some tight outfit and throw someone out of the bar (or house.) I give Bello props for doing the part justice (I truly do believe that she was a magnificent choice), but something was just off about her.

Kathy Baker is perfection as Bernadette, as are Marc Blucas as Dean and Jimmy Smits as Daniel. Hugh Dancy perfectly embodies the Grigg that Swicord wrote (which is a far cry from the Grigg of the novel.) And, Emily Blunt as Prudie is breathtaking in her talent.

An interesting divergence from the book to film is Prudie’s marital strife. In the book, she really has none. She struggles over the idea of whether or not she is in a fitting marriage, but Dean is always the impeccable husband, and she is grateful to have him. Not so in the film: Prudie nearly destroys her marriage and almost has an affair with a student (who very neatly takes three minor characters’ plotlines from the book to create one larger one for himself.) Swicord apparently has a tendency to do things like this: throughout the film, she pulled plotlines from all over the book to make a cohesive movie script. For the most part, having reread the book after seeing the film, I agree with her decisions.

While the book gets kudos for being more realistic (older characters, etc.,) the novelist's voice can often come across as too harsh. For example, the omniscient narrator that is not a character in the book comments on Grigg’s use of store-bought pie crust. Seriously? If it was coming from Jocelyn’s mind, one can understand why it was brought up, but as a non-character narrator, one has to wonder what exactly Fowler has against Grigg, or for that matter, store-bought pie crust. This is one instance where the book cannot even be compared to the film because they are so drastically different.

The older set will most likely enjoy the book more, while the younger crowd will undoubtedly enjoy the film more. Because I come from the aforementioned younger crowd, I’m sticking with the movie. And Emily Blunt.