Still photos from THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB film

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Alert Janeite Franka found these, and we found some more at the source. Just in time for one of the Editrix’s Jane Austen Book Clubs (she is a member of two!), which will be reading and discussing the novel in a couple of weeks.

It’s a slow night, so let’s parse, shall we?

We are a little freaked out by some of the casting. Lynn Redgrave, who we assumed was playing Bernadette, apparently is not, as Kathy Baker is playing Bernadette (and we don’t think she is just rounding the corner of sixty-seven, either). From this photo, we think Lynn Redgrave must be playing Prudie’s mom (Marc Blucas, the handsome fellow in the photo, is playing Dean, Prudie’s long-suffering husband).

Hey, the gang’s all here! From left: Kathy Baker as Bernadette, Emily Blunt (who was fab in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA) as Prudie, Amy Brenneman as Sylvia, a brunette Maggie Grace as Allegra, presumably one of Jocelyn’s dogs, Maria Bello as Jocelyn, and Hugh Dancy as Grigg.

<editorial aside>
Grigg’s character sort of reminds us of the lone Ken doll the Editrix and her Girlhood Best Friend had between them, who served all purposes in our continuing Barbie-doll epic, The Young and the Plastic. Ken was all the dolls’ father, brother, and boyfriend. We were young, of course, and did not understand the inherent creepiness of this, and after Girlhood Best Friend’s bratty brother took back his GI Joe, we were left with no alternative. Similarly, Grigg gets to be several Austen heroes and even one of the heroines, so unless the book has been completely eviscerated, all of you who have dreamed of Hugh Dancy playing Darcy/Knightley/Tilney place your hormones in an upright and locked position. We suspect it will not be nearly as creepy as The Ubiquitous Ken Doll, though we wouldn’t have minded watching him snog Helen Mirren again.
</editorial aside>

The never-fails pickup line: “You read Ursula K. Le Guin, don’t you?

I am way too cute to be treated like crap by an immature self-absorbed Slayer my immature self-absorbed wife.

Well well well! Who’s the blonde stranger? (We don’t remember any beach scenes. Hmm.)

Amy Brenneman and one of the Editrix’s boyfriends, Jimmy Smits, as Sylvia and The President of the United States, Matthew Santos Daniel. They’re trying to woo us with insanely hot men. It might be working. No, no, no, no we are ALL ABOUT THE TEXT dangit! Can you read us Captain Wentworth’s letter again, Mr. Smits? Thanks a bunch.

Now, this beach scene we remember.

A murder of crows! (Hey, who’s playing Mo? No one listed on the IMDB…aw, too bad to lose that subplot, it was hilarious.)

Aw. Is he reading her Jane Austen?

Señor Obanda! (His Costa Rican farm is superior to every other farm in Costa Rica for bird-watching. The water is brackish in Brinshore, and one can’t get a decent dish of tea within five miles of the place.)

Piece of advice: Don’t read the IMDB forum associated with the film unless you want your head to explode messily. Even if you haven’t read TJABC, even if you didn’t like TJABC. Seriously. We warned you.