Lost in Austen
by Dan Zeff
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Elliot Cowan, Florence Hoath, Gemma Arteron, Hugh Bonneville, Jemima RooperDirector: Dan Zeff
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 180 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-04-14
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT
Product features:
- Condition: New
- Format: DVD
- Color; Dolby; DVD; NTSC; Subtitled; Widescreen
Movie Reviews of Lost in Austen
Movie Review: Marvelous treat for the thoughtful
Summary: 5 Stars
Expectation is everything. The Buddhists remind us that there is danger in attachment, and so it is with this film. If you are too strongly attached to one set of ideas regarding Pride and Prejudice, then this film is not for you. To completely enjoy all it has to offer one must be willing to abandon prefigured expectation.
I have been an ardent student and fan of Jane Austen for just over fifty years now and this experience has given me my own set of ideas. My first encounter with Jane was in a book, not on the screen. In fact there was only one film of a Jane Austen novel way back then, and that original version of Pride and Prejudice was much more Hollywood than Jane Austen. If you wanted to read a book you had to have a book, not an e-reader. Letters were written on paper and went snail mail, and there were no mobile phones or portable computers. A lot has changed in fifty years, so we must be mindful of the change that has occurred in two-hundred years. This change is part of the fun of Lost in Austen.
As a rule I don't care at all for the current industry of producing Jane Austen "sequels" although not for the most obvious reason. Jane Austen has taught me to look for more than just a story when I read any novel. Most of the "sequels" are thin and do little more than attempt to capitalize on the perceived "romance" in the original novels.
Lost in Austen is not a "sequel" nor is it a parody. It strikes me as being occasionally satirical, but of a certain set of Jane Austen fans, not of Jane's work. I think we have a mistaken idea of who Jane Austen was, and that largely from the picture her family took great pains to shape for us. If one reads the six major biographies and the remaining letters (most of the letters were likely destroyed by her family) a fuller picture of Jane emerges. Jane was not an uptight, isolated, old spinster as has been suggested. Were Jane to step into our world, she would likely adapt every bit as well as Lost in Austen's Lizzy Bennet does. It is easier to adapt to a barrage of "new" things than it is to tolerate a lack of "old" things we have come to take for granted. This is one of the messages of the film.
It is my firm belief that Jane would seriously enjoy this film once she had adapted to our time and its oddities. Certainly Amanda Price is profane and crude, as are we all compared to the people of Jane's world. That is one of the points of the film. The original novel is often very biting in its criticism, always ironic, occasionally satirical, frequently funny, but rarely romantic. The other films try to sell us romance, and the better ones also present us with Jane's detail allowing us to see contrasts, folly and conceit.
I think some folks object to this film because of multiple factors. Perhaps they misunderstand Jane. It seems clear they misunderstand the novels. They forget that Jane wrote novels not scripture and was hopeful of making money at it. And finally I think the complainers misunderstand this film. It does not poke fun at Jane or her novel. It does clearly poke fun at us, and attempts to remind us all that we should not take her work too seriously after all. For any who know the novel well, there are many plays in the film on events or dialogue in the book.
I highly recommend this film, and do agree that a refresher viewing of the 1995 Colin Firth film is essential as is a thorough understanding of the novel to the greatest enjoyment of it. Just remember, Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief" is also quite helpful to the maximum enjoyment of Lost in Austen. As a note, I have noticed on IMDB that there seems to be another Lost in Austen in the works for this year. It will be interesting to see what they do with a second one.
Summary of Lost in Austen
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