Austenland (Jerusha Hess, 2013)

My slackness in updating this blog has gotten embarrassing. I still need to link to all my TIFF coverage and even put up links for material that preceded my Toronto trip. In the meantime, though, I'll post my review for a film I saw just before TIFF started, for the abysmal and mean-spirited Austenland. Nominally concerning a woman's obsessive Austen love, this film soon drops just about any connection it might have to the author's writing or even stories beyond a Darcy fixation. In fact, the film is by and large hostile to the notion of female sexuality, a cruel irony given how exciting Austen's prose was for stretching the restrictive boundaries of female social life in her time and the manner in which she could critique her characters without mocking them. A game cast is wasted on a despicable script.

My full review is up at Dork Shelf.