BEFORE: Finally, I've reached the endgame of this year's romance chain. This will be the 45th movie in that part of the chain, and I can't wait for it to end. At this time last year I was already deep into action movies with Liam Neeson, heading for Jason Statham films. I'm similarly headed for more Statham films but it's going to take a couple of bridging films to get there - this film and tomorrow's were always part of the plan, but both have been on my list for several years, and it's high past time they were off the list, I need to make room for more movies that were Oscar-nominated this year or just made it to streaming or cable.
Jane Seymour carries over from "Irish Wish". Now I've got a path to Easter, but the next issue with the romance chain and that smaller path that gets me to Easter is that I've stranded a bunch of films, there's just no way around this, but I should take a run through my list and see if I can at least pair up a few films, this could pay off later on when I'm putting together the path to Mother's Day.
THE PLOT: Obsessed with "Pride and Prejudice", a woman travels to a Jane Austen theme park in search of her perfect gentleman.
AFTER: Well, any questions I have about whether to take this film seriously or not can probably be answered with the fact that it was made by the husband-wife team that made "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Nacho Libre", so probably it's not meant to be serious at all. Perhaps it was just made as a parody of rom-coms or a take-down of the theme park / travel industry, I'm not sure. But it's all about some people's obsession with the work of Jane Austen, and then that's taken to the extreme. Reductio ad absurdum.
There is a Jane Austen Centre in Bath, England, which has a permanent exhibition of a Regency-era tea room, with costumed staff, and they have an annual festival and presumably maybe some themed events throughout the year - also there's something in Sweden called The Austen Experience, but it's just a LARPer event held at a castle designed to mimic an immersive Austen novel. Anyway if there WERE a real theme park, something akin to Six Flags, it should be called "Ride and Prejudice". Somebody, please steal my idea, I dare you. Maybe it could be located near Austin, TX?
Anyway, for the purposes of this film, we're supposed to posit that such a place DOES exist, and that maybe it's all some kind of tourism scam to take advantage of romance novel readers, and maybe the travel agents are in on the scheme. The resort promises "actual" romance with one of the cast members, however no touching is allowed, so somebody explain to me how this all works. You can't have romance without contact, and even without it, this whole thing sounds in theory very close to prostitution. Or Comic-Con rules taken in a different direction - I remember a few years back after the #meToo movement Comic-Cons took a stand against any non-consensual touching or even taking anyone's picture without consent. But the forms took much too long to fill out and process so I think this practice was soon abandoned.
Jane, an American woman with no fixed relationship - one guy breaks up with her because of her Austen obsession, and the only other guy in her orbit is her ex-boyfriend, who's a total creep - empties her bank account so she can go on this immersive trip to Austenland. (Look, if it was the Star Wars section of DisneyWorld, I'd support this...) But she can only afford the "copper" package, not the diamond or platinum upgrade, so she has to sleep in a room near the servant's quarters, she doesn't get the nicest dresses to wear, and her back-story involves coming from poverty as a waif that the rich people have taken in for some reason. Mrs. Wattlesbrook, the park's proprietor, naturally focuses her attention on the wealthier guests who have paid for the upgrades. Yeah, that tracks.
The proprietor's nephew, Mr. Nobley, is the "Mr. D'arcy" analog, so the platinum guests are all hoping to be paired up with him, but there's also Colonel Andrews and a navy man, Captain East, who shows up late because his other acting gig ran long, also it might have been a porn shoot. But Jane opts out of the fancier tea ceremonies and finds that she prefers the company of Martin, the resort's driver and stable-hand. They bond over the birth of a foal and they kiss and spend more time together. Martin gets jealous, however, when he sees Jane interacting with the actors playing the Austen characters. But when she spends time with Martin, Mr. Nobley warns her against "cavorting with the servants".
All of the park's guests and characters gather together to put on a play, this apparently is a reference to Austen's "Mansfield Park" and what could possibly go wrong? The play is a disaster, poorly acted and poorly staged, and one woman gets poked in the eye with an arrow shot by "Aphrodite". But Jane also bonds with Nobley a bit over how much of a disaster it was - really, all that was missing was the pie fight. But there's still the big ball scheduled before the end of everyone's week at Austenland.
At the ball, Nobley proclaims his love for Jane, but she believes he's only acting, and leaves him for the company of Martin, the stable-hand, whose love is "real". Jeez, she came all that way and ended up in a very Austen-like love triangle, trying in vain to determine which of her suitors would make the best partner. Mrs. Wattlesbrook reveals, however, that Martin is ALSO one of the actors, and her romance with him had been scripted for her from the start. Jane leaves but also threatens to sue Austenland, Inc. because she was assaulted at one point by Mr. Wattlesbrook, and she's going to hold the resort responsible for that.
Martin is sent to the airport, to smooth things over and try to convince Jane that his affection for her was real, but Nobley also shows up and tries to do the same thing. It's a genuine dilemma, and just like yesterday's film, it's two men brawling over a woman, because that's how boys settle things. Usually this would end with Jane choosing neither suitor, because she needs to take charge of her own "story", but only one of the suitors flies across the Atlantic to return the sketchbook she left behind. OK, that should settle things. There's a mid-credits scene that shows us that one of the other guests, "Elizabeth Charming" has purchased the resort from Mrs. Wattlesbrook and it now has a more amusement park feel to it, with rides and fair foods, and really, that's a step in the right direction, no more sexual assault allegations anyway.
The place really needed an Emma Wood-House of Horrors, a Tunnel of Love ride, and really, a lot of better and more-fried food. Who can survive on tea and finger sandwiches? They need a funnel cake stand called "Fried and Prejudice" and maybe a BBQ stand called "Sauce and Sauceability". Then even I would go there.
Directed by Jerusha Hess (writer of "Nacho Libre")
Also starring Keri Russell (last seen in "Dark Skies"), JJ Feild (last seen in "Ford v Ferrari"), Bret McKenzie (last seen in "A Minecraft Movie"), Jennifer Coolidge (last seen in "Riff Raff"), James Callis (last seen in "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy"), Georgia King (last seen in "The Duchess"), Ricky Whittle, Rupert Vansittart (last seen in "The Iron Lady"), Ayda Field, Ruben Crow, Demetri Goritsas (last seen in "The Special Relationship"), Parker Sawyers (last seen in "Infinite Storm"), Sarah Niles (last seen in "Heads of State"), Annie Gould, Tracy Higgins, Goldy Greaves, Bernadette Chapman, Jools Newman, Richard Alan Reid (last seen in "Love, Wedding Marriage"), Austin Wilks, Alan Calton, Tom Whitecross, Jadran Malkovich, Gideon Jensen, Jared Hess (last heard in "A Minecraft Movie"), Andy Joy (last seen in "Rush" (2013)), with archive footage of Colin Firth.
RATING: 5 out of 10 chamber pots (only, please don't use them)
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