(And in the book, yes, Daniel read Persuasion, or part of it, at the hospital, just like in the movie.)

Deb, I think they called Señor Obanda “Mr. Darcy” because Bernadette liked P&P so much–they were really teasing her. I wish they had left in the tidbit from Sanditon that was in the book! (He owned a farm in Costa Rica, the best birdwatching farm on the tour, and was eager to promote it to other tourists. Yeah, he’s not Mr. Darcy, he’s Mr. Parker!)

Bill, you need to look up the definition of “pornography.” And that’s why your comment got trapped in the spam filter, by the bye, because you used that term. You should get an eyeful of what else shows up there. You’d stop complaining about very mild sexual content in literary novels intended for an adult audience (by which I mean “not young girls”). I understand it’s not to your taste, but you’re not playing fair.

I like your thoughts about “In Austen’s works the key men might at first appear to be jerks, or aloof or prideful, and Austen normally has the women learn the whys and hows of their personalities, coming to understand them much better and using love to break down the walls between them. The men rarely transform personalities. It would be more accurate to say that they instead find some common ground with the women, appreciate them, fall in love with them and see some wisdom in opening up or coming around.”

And I agree that it was weird in TJABC to see Dean, especially, lying in bed reading Persuasion aloud. Did he really “develop” like that in the book? Maybe I didn’t read that far before quitting. As for the other men in the movie, only Grigg had actually read the books, right? And that was because he joined the club to get closer to Jocelyn. At the end of the movie we saw Daniel waving a book around and asking if he could join, but I didn’t think he had actually read it.

Oh, and the other thing that bothered me was the comment at the very end directed at Bernadette’s 7th husband: “Mr. Darcy”. Say whut? I don’t think so! Takes more than a tux and a lot of $$$ to make a Darcy.

As a man, I found the relationship stories in the movie to be utterly offensive to men. In Austen’s works the key men might at first appear to be jerks, or aloof or prideful, and Austen normally has the women learn the whys and hows of their personalities, coming to understand them much better and using love to break down the walls between them. The men rarely transform personalities. It would be more accurate to say that they instead find some common ground with the women, appreciate them, fall in love with them and see some wisdom in opening up or coming around.

The movie is subtly but significantly different in that it goes into little or no detail about why the men are the way they are, choosing instead to focus on how they instead become exactly how their women want them to be.

In relationships men deal constantly with women who want to change them. I’ve never felt that Austen’s books or the films based upon the books promoted that behavior. With this Jane Austen Book Club film I felt just the opposite. If only husbands and boyfriends would read Jane Austen with their wives, we would all come to our senses and be just what they want us to be. It was quite superficial. In the film’s defense, it’s difficult to include all of the subtle details found in a book, yet the previous Jane Austen films were somehow able to accomplish that feat.

The first time I saw the film, I was one of less than a dozen patrons and the only man. The second time I took it in, the audience was 100% male–unfortunately, that meant I was alone in the auditorium. I regret that the film-going crowd did not turn out for this heartwarming, funny movie as it has for “No Country For Old Men”.