The Jane Austen Book Club

Directed by Robin Swicord. Starring Kathy Baker, Maria Bello, Marc Blucas, Emily Blunt, Amy Brenneman, Hugh Dancy, Maggie Grace, Lynn Redgrave, Jimmy Smits, Kevin Zegers PG cert, gen release, 106 min
Photograph: The Irish Times

Coincidentally opening here on the same day as movies adapted from stories by popular living novelists - Maeve Binchy (How About You) and Monica Ali (Brick Lane) - The Jane Austen Book Club throws together avid admirers of the English writer who died 190 years ago and whose six novels have proved a magnet for film producers.

Set in Sacramento, California, the film assembles six characters (one for each Austen novel) in a book club that becomes a support group for them. Five are women dealing with personal problems: a six-time divorcee (Kathy Baker); a librarian (Amy Brenneman) whose husband (Jimmy Smits) leaves her after 32 years; their lesbian daughter (Maggie Grace), who's in a difficult relationship; a dog breeder (Maria Bello) who leads a lonely life; and a prim teacher (Emily Blunt) unhappily married to a football fanatic who thinks Austen is the capital of Texas.

The token male (Hugh Dancy) in the book club is a perky young computers expert who knows little more about Austen and prefers science fiction.

Whatever initial promise the screenplay shows is soon squandered in a succession of unlikely narrative contrivances, as the women are guided through life by asking themselves, "What would Jane do?" - which is even heavy- handedly spelled out on a traffic signal when the teacher is about to embark on an affair with a student (Kevin Zegers).

This cloying movie, which owes as much to self-help manuals as it does to Austen's books, is all too eager to please, as it views its characters through a rose-tinted lens. It marks an undistinguished directing debut for screenwriter Robin Swicord, who has specialised in literary adaptations such as Little Women (1994), Memoirs of a Geisha and Matilda.

© 2007 The Irish Times