The Jane Austen Book Club: Critic Reviews

100%

MovieWeb: 2 reviews

65%

RottenTomatoes: 115 reviews

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Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly (Top Critic)

67

There's comfort to be had in the plot geometry of The Jane Austen Book Club, a photogenic adaptation of Karen Joy Fowler's 2004 best-seller.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Stephen Holden New York Times (Top Critic)

70

An entertaining, carefully assembled piece of clockwork that imposes order on ever more complicated gender warfare.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Ann Hornaday Washington Post (Top Critic)

Everyone is given their due and dignity in this funny, sexy, humanist film that, if it is a chick flick, gives the genre a good name.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Wesley Morris Boston Globe (Top Critic)

50

As a friend said on the way out: At least no books were harmed in the making of this movie. And he's right. But that's only because no one really tried.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Elizabeth Weitzman New York Daily News (Top Critic)

63

This is a comfort film, the on-screen equivalent of mac and cheese -- though with a splash of truffle oil to class things up.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Amy Biancolli Houston Chronicle (Top Critic)

75

The episodes roll by in smooth progression, and the talkiness has the round, impassioned tones of readers ignited by fiction.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times (Top Critic)

88

[Swicord] has created characters who really do seem to have read the books and talk like they have. And she has created a book club that, like all book clubs, is really about its members.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Tasha Robinson Chicago Tribune (Top Critic)

75

The Jane Austen Book Club is an admirable mix of heady and fluffy, the kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy that needn't make filmgoers ashamed of what they wished for.
Full Review » 5 years ago
J. R. Jones Chicago Reader (Top Critic)

The movie equivalent of a toenail-painting session.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Carrie Rickey Philadelphia Inquirer (Top Critic)

63

The acting ensemble is as colorful, and thorny, as a garden of Austen archetypes.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Colin Covert Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top Critic)

63

The film has an undeniable, easygoing charm. Real life is seldom so pleasingly plotted, but then real life is what people go to movies like this to get away from.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Penny Walker Arizona Republic (Top Critic)

80

Despite its flaws, Book Club leaves viewers with that best result of Austen films: a wonderful ache to fall in love. It didn't pierce my soul, but it definitely lifted my spirits.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Andrew Sarris New York Observer (Top Critic)

The cast alone makes The Jane Austen Book Club good -- though not great -- entertainment for at least the bookish moviegoers among us.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Dennis Harvey Variety (Top Critic)

Cast is first-rate all around, unafraid to play up the annoying, insensitive or self-pitying aspects of their nonetheless likeable characters.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Lou Lumenick New York Post (Top Critic)

63

The Jane Austen Book Club is worth watching primarily for Blunt, the delicious scene-stealer from The Devil Wears Prada.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Roger Moore Orlando Sentinel (Top Critic)

80

Leave it to the Godmother of Chick Lit to inspire the best chick picture in many an age.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Susan Walker Toronto Star (Top Critic)

63

The script might have slipped into caricature, as often the adaptations of Austen's novels have, but Swicord opts for characters in whom we might see ourselves.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Rick Groen Globe and Mail (Top Critic)

63

The Jane Austen Book Club could be the start of a genre.
Full Review » 5 years ago
James Berardinelli ReelViews (Top Critic)

63

The Jane Austen Book Club is an example of how a movie can follow the general plot of a book yet fail to capture the spirit.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Kirk Honeycutt Hollywood Reporter (Top Critic)

So whatever the shortcomings of this literary construct, it remains a joy to experience a movie so in love with good writing.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Carina Chocano Los Angeles Times (Top Critic)

60

Swicord has a playful sense of humor and a good ear for dialogue, and the movie pleasantly accomplishes what it set out to accomplish.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Jeffrey Gantz Boston Phoenix

Full Review » 3 years ago
Steve Biodrowski Cinefantastique

...not a genre film but...deserves mention for portraying a character who is a fan of science-fiction but is not characterized as a hopeless geek...
Full Review » 3 years ago
Bob Mondello NPR.org

Full Review » 4 years ago
Heather Huntington ReelzChannel.com

70

A surprisingly successful, un-Hallmark-ified take on the traditional chick flick.
Full Review » 4 years ago