Lost in Austen
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.86 You Save: $8.12 (54%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.92 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Lost in Austen
Movie Review: Toying with Austen in the Best Possible Way
Summary: 5 Stars
Let me start off by saying that I'm a huge Jane Austen fan and "Pride and Prejudice" is one of my favorite novels. With that in mind, I found this movie to be absolutely brilliant. It looks like some Austen fans didn't get the joke, but I think the way the writer toyed with the original "Pride and Prejudice" storyline was both hilarious and excellently done. Rather than step into the story of the novel, the heroine Amanda (who is herself a loving fan of Austen) manages to bungle up all the main relationships so that the original plot is in complete disarray by the end of the film. Certainly, if you're expecting the same re-telling of "Pride and Prejudice" as the novel then you'll be sorely disappointed with this movie. However, I find this quirky version added, rather than subtracted, from my enjoyment of the novel. You'll even find that some of the "rewriting" could have existed in the original story, but we as readers just didn't have access to that information since we only see the story from one perspective. I also disagree with some reviewers' claims that this movie doesn't stay true to Austen's characters. From the strong and spunky Elizabeth to the dreadful Mr. Collins to the cold, but good-intentioned Mr. Darcy, I found that each character was just as Austen intended (with Mr. Wickham and Miss Darcy being possible exceptions due to a little "interpretation" on the writer's part). Amanda gives a fresh, entertaining take on Austen's world from a modern perspective and is able to live out a romantic fantasy many fellow Austen fans would kill to experience. If I had to bet, I'd say this film was created by devoted Austen fans; ones who just happen to have a great sense of humor.Movie Review: Unexpectedly entertaining.
Summary: 5 Stars
THANK YOU!
I am totally grateful to be absolutely FREE of any and all tendency to compare this movie with the original novel and be disappointed as a result. The original Austen novel serves as fodder.
Think of it this way: Amanda is thrust "back in time" to a FICTIONAL WORLD: in other words, a world that simply never existed except in her own mind! What makes the movie so enjoyable is that it is truly Amanda's story and not some crappy thing being shoehorned into Austen's original work. The revelations are about Amanda, how she thinks, how she reacts, how she adapts. It is not about Pride and Prejudice any more. Suspend your disbelief and be Amanda for a short while.
As for wishing you could see Amanda bumbling around in a story that more closely resembled Pride and Prejudice, gosh, I would not wish that on the most forgiving of Austen fans. It is much more fun to watch Amanda struggle in a "fictional reality" that does not at all resemble her expectations.
Austen makes Henry Tilney say in Northanger Abbey that a novel is "only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language." For Austen, that meant one thing. For this movie, it means something entirely different, and as far as I am concerned, they succeeded quite well in that quality that matters most in a movie: it entertained me.
Yes. I expected to dislike the movie. But I liked it quite a lot.
Movie Review: Jane Austen is spinning in her grave... with delight!
Summary: 5 Stars
What girl has read or seen Pride and Prejudice and not fantasized being Elizabeth Bennett?
A brief synopsis: The current heroine, 21st century Amanda, is enthralled with Pride and Prejudice; through a time portal in her bathroom, she gets to change places with the novel's heroine Elizabeth Bennett. The filmmakers take this in two directions simultaneously....
* First, Amanda creates a butterfly effect in that all the novel characters behave as one might expect but the outcome is quite different than what Jane Austen wrote for her characters.
* Second, Amanda is a fish out of water as she navigates a 200 year old society, while Elizabeth is coming to terms with the 21st century.
There are lots of little fun takeoffs and surprises.... For instance,
* The pond scene from the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth version)is mimicked.
* The Charlotte Lucus character goes off in an entirely different direction.... literally
* Jane's marriage is not what one would expect
* Amanda's virginity becomes an issue
* Mr. Darcy pays a visit to 21st century London (another fish out of water)
* The 18th century characters are properly impressed with Amanda's income of £25,000/year.
* Elizabeth is asked to play at the piano, she apparently played Petula Clark's Downtown
You have to know a bit about Pride and Prejudice to understand all that is going. But if you do, $7.99 spent on this dvd will give you more enjoyment that you can imagine. I highly recommend this.
Movie Review: Extremely Enjoyable Fantasy!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you're obsessed with accuracy and looking for a perfect Jane Austen rendition, move on. But if you've ever sat and read the book, saw an Austen movie, and closed your eyes and wished a thousand times that you could go back in time and live in Jane Austen's day, this is great entertainment. How many of us wish we could be part of Darcy's world? Meet a man with manners or live in a world without TV's, iPods, computers and learn what the true intercourse of conversation meant? How true it would be that our modern lifestyles would actually make it very hard for us to adapt into a time and place we merely romanticize over and over again. How odd those characters would think our mannerisms were in return!
The series does just that, only Amanda's arrival sort of "buggers" up the story, if you get my drift. Nothing goes like it should and she tries to fix it all to the way it's suppose to be written in the book. Darcy, of course, is wonderfully attractive, the absolute snob, who can't figure out why he's "tormented" and attracted to a woman he frankly considers vulgar. It's fiction living inside of fiction - a phenomenal idea.
All I can say to the die-hard Austen fans, is lighten up folks! It's meant to be fun and enjoyable, not a perfect rendition of the original. It's called creative liberty. What always amazes me about obsessed fans of certain genre, is that they treat the originals as if they were written by the finger of God on stone and we're not to change, alter, or enjoy it in any other manner. That, I think, is a great shame.
Movie Review: Lost... in Lost in Austen!
Summary: 5 Stars
The movie is about this chic (Amanda) who is a huge Pride and Prejudice fan. One night while reading, she hears a sound in her bathroom, only to walk in and discover Lizzy Bennett standing in her shower! Lizzy explains she came through a door in the wall (One which was originally home to pipes and such) but when they open it this time, you see into the upstairs of Longbourne! Amanda wanders in out of curiosity, and the door shuts. She's trapped in P&P, and Lizzy is in her world.
Amanda quickly learns she's essentially landed in the beginning of Pride and Prejudice with the arrival of Mr. Bingley in town. Amanda introduces herself as a friend of Lizzy's, saying they did a swap and Lizzy is at her house. The family takes her in, and she accompanies them through all of the events of the story.
Amanda desperately tries to communicate with Lizzy to get the door back open (Which has sealed itself). Due to the lack of Lizzy, much of the story is being altered. Characters are falling for the wrong people, events are changing, and much more. Amanda makes and effort to influence the story to keep in on track with the writings of Jane Austen, but is overwhelmed by how badly the story has gone awry.
I won't give away anymore! I will say this though- I laughed A LOT, and I loved the movie as a whole! It was 3 hours long, but worth every minute. What P&P fan hasn't fantasized about actually meeting Mr. Darcy??? I wish... How awesome would it be to read oneself into our favorite stories? Too cool!