Four Austen-themed Hallmark movies
Feb. 29th, 2024 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeThe Hallmark Channel, bless ‘em, decided to do “Love-uary” for February, which included introducing a brand-new Jane-Austen-themed movie each week. I watched them all, and I have opinions.
Week 1. Paging Mr Darcy. Our heroine is a stuffy academic who attends a conference of Jane-ites to give their keynote address and to make a good impression on a woman who attends regularly, because this woman is the key to our heroine’s career hopes, since she’s hiring for a position at, I think, Princeton. A young man in the costume of Mr Darcy meets her at the airport and has been assigned to help her, but our heroine rejects all the costumes-and-tea aspects of the Janeites – until she discovers that the woman she wants to impress is really into all that, and moreover is the young man’s aunt. An okay light romance.
Week 2. Love & Jane. Our heroine is played by Alison Sweeney, the lead in the Murder She Baked series and a Hallmark regular. She leads a Jane Austen book club in her local community while struggling to get a novel written and working at an ad agency. A handsome billionaire (also familiar from other Hallmark stuff) buys the bookstore she frequents and – horrors – values his online customers too, which don’t seem sufficiently real to her. He gives her ad agency the opportunity to do a campaign for his new online book-related project. The two spar a bit and start falling in love. When she does her big presentation for his project, she ends up rejecting his premise entirely and gives a stirring talk in favor of real books building community, which everyone loves, ignoring the fact that she’s surely costing her employer a big contract. Meanwhile, in her house late at night, while she’s trying to work, Jane Austen shows up and gives her pep talks, which is obviously supposed to be the emotional heart of the movie, but it felt very much tacked on. This movie was only so-so, but I didn’t mind watching it.
Week 4. Sense & Sensibility. I temporarily skipped week 3, which looked pretty iffy, when I discovered that this version of S&S has a largely Black cast! So surprising! At first, I thought that only the second Mrs Dashwood and her daughters would be Black, but it turned out that all but five of the named characters were: Edward and Robert Ferrars, John Dashwood, Sir John Middleton, and the senior Mr Dashwood who dies at the beginning; Fanny was played by a mixed-race actress. (Mrs. Ferrars was the step-mother, not the mother, of Edward, Robert, and Fanny.) Willoughby’s wife doesn’t speak; she looked vaguely Asian. Col. Brandon’s ward and most of the servants were also white. That gives us quite an impressive Black cast: Elinor, Marianne, Margaret, their mother, Col. Brandon, Willoughby, Mrs Jennings, Mrs Ferrars, Lucy Steele, Miss Steele, and probably anyone else I’m forgetting. The actress playing Elinor was quite good (and strikingly beautiful); the actor playing Edward was one of my Hallmark favorites, Dan Jeannotte, who is totally great at this sort of thing. Some of the other acting was occasionally a bit iffy. The costumes were eye-poppingly bizarre. It was still fun to watch though.
Week 3. An American in Austen. The trailer for this one had set my expectations very low – a modern woman finds herself in Hertfordshire, or wherever it is, with the Bennet family of Pride and Prejudice. I finally watched it today, and I was pleasantly surprised! Harriet, our heroine (who is played by an actress with the auspicious name of Eliza Bennett), receives a romantic marriage proposal from her beloved sweetheart, Ethan. She says… maybe? It turns out she has idealized Mr Darcy, and Ethan is not Mr Darcy. She spots a falling star and makes a wish – to have Mr Darcy. The next thing she knows, she’s riding in a carriage along an English country lane and finds herself arriving at the home of the Bennets, who believe she is their cousin from America come to visit. Harriet thinks this is all an elaborate costume setup by Ethan to win her over, but one by one, events from Pride and Prejudice take place, and unfortunately, because of her ironic take on the whole spectacle, she’s the one who attracts Darcy’s attention, not Elizabeth. The story gradually gets more and more messed up, no matter how she tries to fix things. An unexpectedly smart script, and I definitely enjoyed it. The dresses were very nice – pretty while being what you’d expect someone of that social class to wear. Also, Sarah Ferguson was an executive producer of the movie and makes an appearance at the Netherfield Ball as some random duchess, which was unnecessary but also not a problem.
So, four very different takes on bringing something new to Jane Austen. I applaud their efforts.
Week 1. Paging Mr Darcy. Our heroine is a stuffy academic who attends a conference of Jane-ites to give their keynote address and to make a good impression on a woman who attends regularly, because this woman is the key to our heroine’s career hopes, since she’s hiring for a position at, I think, Princeton. A young man in the costume of Mr Darcy meets her at the airport and has been assigned to help her, but our heroine rejects all the costumes-and-tea aspects of the Janeites – until she discovers that the woman she wants to impress is really into all that, and moreover is the young man’s aunt. An okay light romance.
Week 2. Love & Jane. Our heroine is played by Alison Sweeney, the lead in the Murder She Baked series and a Hallmark regular. She leads a Jane Austen book club in her local community while struggling to get a novel written and working at an ad agency. A handsome billionaire (also familiar from other Hallmark stuff) buys the bookstore she frequents and – horrors – values his online customers too, which don’t seem sufficiently real to her. He gives her ad agency the opportunity to do a campaign for his new online book-related project. The two spar a bit and start falling in love. When she does her big presentation for his project, she ends up rejecting his premise entirely and gives a stirring talk in favor of real books building community, which everyone loves, ignoring the fact that she’s surely costing her employer a big contract. Meanwhile, in her house late at night, while she’s trying to work, Jane Austen shows up and gives her pep talks, which is obviously supposed to be the emotional heart of the movie, but it felt very much tacked on. This movie was only so-so, but I didn’t mind watching it.
Week 4. Sense & Sensibility. I temporarily skipped week 3, which looked pretty iffy, when I discovered that this version of S&S has a largely Black cast! So surprising! At first, I thought that only the second Mrs Dashwood and her daughters would be Black, but it turned out that all but five of the named characters were: Edward and Robert Ferrars, John Dashwood, Sir John Middleton, and the senior Mr Dashwood who dies at the beginning; Fanny was played by a mixed-race actress. (Mrs. Ferrars was the step-mother, not the mother, of Edward, Robert, and Fanny.) Willoughby’s wife doesn’t speak; she looked vaguely Asian. Col. Brandon’s ward and most of the servants were also white. That gives us quite an impressive Black cast: Elinor, Marianne, Margaret, their mother, Col. Brandon, Willoughby, Mrs Jennings, Mrs Ferrars, Lucy Steele, Miss Steele, and probably anyone else I’m forgetting. The actress playing Elinor was quite good (and strikingly beautiful); the actor playing Edward was one of my Hallmark favorites, Dan Jeannotte, who is totally great at this sort of thing. Some of the other acting was occasionally a bit iffy. The costumes were eye-poppingly bizarre. It was still fun to watch though.
Week 3. An American in Austen. The trailer for this one had set my expectations very low – a modern woman finds herself in Hertfordshire, or wherever it is, with the Bennet family of Pride and Prejudice. I finally watched it today, and I was pleasantly surprised! Harriet, our heroine (who is played by an actress with the auspicious name of Eliza Bennett), receives a romantic marriage proposal from her beloved sweetheart, Ethan. She says… maybe? It turns out she has idealized Mr Darcy, and Ethan is not Mr Darcy. She spots a falling star and makes a wish – to have Mr Darcy. The next thing she knows, she’s riding in a carriage along an English country lane and finds herself arriving at the home of the Bennets, who believe she is their cousin from America come to visit. Harriet thinks this is all an elaborate costume setup by Ethan to win her over, but one by one, events from Pride and Prejudice take place, and unfortunately, because of her ironic take on the whole spectacle, she’s the one who attracts Darcy’s attention, not Elizabeth. The story gradually gets more and more messed up, no matter how she tries to fix things. An unexpectedly smart script, and I definitely enjoyed it. The dresses were very nice – pretty while being what you’d expect someone of that social class to wear. Also, Sarah Ferguson was an executive producer of the movie and makes an appearance at the Netherfield Ball as some random duchess, which was unnecessary but also not a problem.
So, four very different takes on bringing something new to Jane Austen. I applaud their efforts.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-02 06:22 pm (UTC)An American in Austen is so cute, it is on BritBox and I have watched a few.
Way to go Hallmark! I miss that channel so much.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-02 08:02 pm (UTC)