The Jane Austen Book Club

This one is cute enough to get by. A cast of decent actresses—including Maria Bello, Kathy Baker, Emily Blunt and Amy Brenneman—star as a group of women who form a book club concentrating on the books of Jane Austen. To describe the plot would make the movie sound like a bunch of clichéd crap, and in some ways, it is. It’s all in the performances, which are very good. Even Maggie Grace, who is usually lacking in acting chops, does a nice job as one of the club members. Jimmy Smits gives a great performance as a man going through a midlife crisis, and Hugh Dancy is funny as the lone male member of the club. I was shocked to find that a movie about a bunch of women sitting around Starbucks reading Jane Austen novels is interesting and entertaining, but that’s what this movie is.