Austenland seems a funny sort of romance but is secretly highly troubling

It’s easy to get lost in fiction and fictional worlds. Sometimes the beloved characters on the page and screen seem so familiar, so comfortable, they seem like real friends. And why not? Fiction can provide relaxation, comfort, and happiness to people with difficulties in life. But there is a line that can be crossed; there are those that end up valuing the fictional more than the actual, the characters more than their friends or family. And of course, people can take the wrong lessons from the fiction they read and cause … problems in their lives. For example, the books of Jane Austen, specifically Pride and Prejudice, which has seen movie adaptations, book parodies, and even a breakfast cereal (not really). There is a strong romantic element of the story, but it is a sneaky one; class and money are presented as important themes, and there is an underlying idea of these women not being “complete” without a husband, which was certainly the feeling at the time. Some things haven’t changed much.

Austenland has some interesting background in getting it pushed forward. Produced by Stephenie Meyer, the author of the insipid Twilight novels and based on a book Meyer particularly enjoyed, being an “obsessed Austen freak” (her words). It’s also written and directed by Jerusha Hess (co-wrote Napoleon Dynamite), so there are quite a few female influences on this film, not to mention the female characters. So why do I get this sneaking suspicion that the movie is actually kind of misogynistic? The movie is about Jane (Keri Russell), a 30-something woman who is so obsessed with Austen’s books, and Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice in particular, that she has never been able to have a real relationship. It’s played for some laughs, often successfully, but there are hints of something deeper and darker that are never truly examined. So Jane spends her life savings on a trip to a sort of Austen theme park in the UK, where she can have an “authentic” and “romantic” experience like a character in the Austen novels. How authentic varies depending on how much you pay, of course. Run by stern Jane Seymour’s Mrs. Wattlesbrook, Jane meets Mr. Darcy analogue, the doesn’t-really-want-to-be-there Henry Nobley, foppish Colonel Andrews (Andrew Callis), and far wealthier visitors played by Jennifer Coolidge and Georgia King. Will Jane find herself playing someone else, and might she find real love with one of the dashing gentlemen or perhaps the down to earth groundskeeper Martin (Bret McKenzie)? Gee. I wonder.

Actually, she doesn’t find herself at all, but that’s just a bit of the problem here. The movie is so concerned with jamming in the laughs and nonsense alongside a vaguely romantic story, it completely ignores some interesting ideas. This doesn’t even cover the bizarre scene where Jane is assaulted by an elderly man (Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s husband), which is also meant to be humorous. But it’s not. Immediately after leaving this movie, I found it kind of charming, but that was until I began to think about it. Keri Russell, who I positively loved in The Americans (best new TV show of 2013) is good but the movie doesn’t really use her to her capabilities. Jennifer Coolidge plays a ludicrously over the top oddball, which I suppose is all she does these days. The problem with a movie like this is that it tries to do too much. It wants to be a secret romance with a few twists (all obvious) and also a satirical comedy. But the satire is utterly lost and it becomes about grand gestures and simplistic romantic formulas. Its conclusion seems to be, yes, women really do need men to be worthwhile, just not fictional ones. And while it’s good for people to grow past obsessions, it’s not good to think that this lesson is useful or meaningful at all.

So despite the fun performances and amusing tone, the movie couldn’t help but be secretly bad for people and romance. Too bad.