She wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how
So, he we are again. Hallmark's marathon of brand-new Jane Austen-themed rom-coms has been continuing throughout February. Have I mentioned that they've dubbed the month "Loveuary?" It's a pun so rotten, they barely put any thought in.
Anyway, it's time to take a look at Love & Jane, the second of these four movies, which debuted on February 10. I was already prepared for last week's deeply B- movie Paging Mr. Darcy to be the high-water mark for this run of titles, but let me tell you, I still failed to anticipate just how dire things were about to get. But first, the plot.
Lilly Thorpe (Alison Sweeney) has high standards. She lives in Boston, working at an advertising firm that she hates and running a Jane Austen book club that she loves. But she doesn't want a man to rescue her. Thus, she rejects her boyfriend's proposal even though it would make good financial sense to hitch her horse to that wagon. She thinks she's found another such man to reject when she meets the handsome tech mogul Trevor Fitzsimmons (Benjamin Ayres), a client at her agency who is trying to promote the local bookstore he just bought and wants to use as native advertising for a new app or something. (??)
She hates him at first because he pulls a book off the shelf to fulfill an online order instead of just letting her grab it (which is meant to reflect Lilly's love of old-timey traditions, but really just makes her look like an insufferable Karen). If you've seen any of these Hallmark Pride & Prejudice riffs, you know that this hate will evaporate almost instantly once he puts on a nice sweater and reveals that, Trevor, in addition to looking like someone drew angry eyebrows on a chiseled, Canadian Adam Scott, also likes books too or whatever. Anyway, Lilly's desperation to get her life figured out somehow causes the spirit of Jane Austen herself (Kendra Anderson) to appear and give her romantic and professional guidance.
So let's start with the good, shall we? It's always nice to stay positive. The animated opening credits were kind of neat, and the bit where Regency-style cameo silhouettes were being swiped left and right like Tinder was mildly clever. There was also one comic scene between Lilly and her coworker/BFF Alisha (Aadila Dosani) that really worked. And... Um... Well, Lilly's royalty free smart home device was named Kimi, so I think this technically takes place in the Steven Soderbergh universe.
That's all I got.
Beyond that, I can't think of a single audience that this movie serves. Obviously, Hallmark movies aren't ever designed for aesthetically-minded cineastes, but this one does its best to pack as much powerful ugliness into every frame anyway. Its interiors are brown, dusty, grubby, and underlit. I thought at first that the movie looked so ugly because we were meant to understand how bad Lilly's life was before magic became intertwined with it. However, to my chagrin, I discovered that, as soon as said magic performed said intertwining, they kept on resolutely vomiting up one ugly composition after another.
It only feints toward good-bad occasionally, like the walk-and-talk scene where there was clearly much less walk available than talk, so the actors are forced to take teeny-tiny steps as they make their way across a minuscule stretch of pavement. Beyond that, there's nothing fun. You're just left to sink into the mire of ugly cinematography, the baffling eyesores they call costumes, and the constant attempts to claw some sort of affable wackiness out of the material.
And god, the material. Without the Jane Austen Is A Puckish Ghost angle, the movie is just another bland Prejudice retelling that throws out everything from the classic novel except the fact that its leads hate each other at the beginning. Unfortunately, that Austen angle delivers less than nothing at every possible opportunity. In addition to the historical inaccuracy of giving her an Elizabethan understanding of dowries as opposed to a Regency one, the movie underserves the Austen character something fierce.
Jane Austen fails to give Lilly a single piece of romantic advice that actually accomplishes anything narratively, rendering her an entirely useless high-concept plot device that is more mystifying than delightful. She is also performed with a notable lack of élan by an actress who is entirely lost at sea, as well she should be, given the way this screenplay positions her.
Unfortunately, the romantic storyline really could have used her help. The two leads have less than no chemistry together. In fact, each time Trevor showed up at any point within the first two-thirds of Love & Jane, I had already forgotten that he was a character in the movie. So without romance and without comedy, this is a pretty useless rom-com, I daresay.
Hallmark movies have a fervent commitment to genericness that tends to prevent them from scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel cinematically, and that rule does apply here as well. But this movie is so close to the bottom that it can smell oak.
Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about ‘80s slasher movies than he has any right to. He's a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.
Anyway, it's time to take a look at Love & Jane, the second of these four movies, which debuted on February 10. I was already prepared for last week's deeply B- movie Paging Mr. Darcy to be the high-water mark for this run of titles, but let me tell you, I still failed to anticipate just how dire things were about to get. But first, the plot.
Lilly Thorpe (Alison Sweeney) has high standards. She lives in Boston, working at an advertising firm that she hates and running a Jane Austen book club that she loves. But she doesn't want a man to rescue her. Thus, she rejects her boyfriend's proposal even though it would make good financial sense to hitch her horse to that wagon. She thinks she's found another such man to reject when she meets the handsome tech mogul Trevor Fitzsimmons (Benjamin Ayres), a client at her agency who is trying to promote the local bookstore he just bought and wants to use as native advertising for a new app or something. (??)
She hates him at first because he pulls a book off the shelf to fulfill an online order instead of just letting her grab it (which is meant to reflect Lilly's love of old-timey traditions, but really just makes her look like an insufferable Karen). If you've seen any of these Hallmark Pride & Prejudice riffs, you know that this hate will evaporate almost instantly once he puts on a nice sweater and reveals that, Trevor, in addition to looking like someone drew angry eyebrows on a chiseled, Canadian Adam Scott, also likes books too or whatever. Anyway, Lilly's desperation to get her life figured out somehow causes the spirit of Jane Austen herself (Kendra Anderson) to appear and give her romantic and professional guidance.
So let's start with the good, shall we? It's always nice to stay positive. The animated opening credits were kind of neat, and the bit where Regency-style cameo silhouettes were being swiped left and right like Tinder was mildly clever. There was also one comic scene between Lilly and her coworker/BFF Alisha (Aadila Dosani) that really worked. And... Um... Well, Lilly's royalty free smart home device was named Kimi, so I think this technically takes place in the Steven Soderbergh universe.
That's all I got.
Beyond that, I can't think of a single audience that this movie serves. Obviously, Hallmark movies aren't ever designed for aesthetically-minded cineastes, but this one does its best to pack as much powerful ugliness into every frame anyway. Its interiors are brown, dusty, grubby, and underlit. I thought at first that the movie looked so ugly because we were meant to understand how bad Lilly's life was before magic became intertwined with it. However, to my chagrin, I discovered that, as soon as said magic performed said intertwining, they kept on resolutely vomiting up one ugly composition after another.
It only feints toward good-bad occasionally, like the walk-and-talk scene where there was clearly much less walk available than talk, so the actors are forced to take teeny-tiny steps as they make their way across a minuscule stretch of pavement. Beyond that, there's nothing fun. You're just left to sink into the mire of ugly cinematography, the baffling eyesores they call costumes, and the constant attempts to claw some sort of affable wackiness out of the material.
And god, the material. Without the Jane Austen Is A Puckish Ghost angle, the movie is just another bland Prejudice retelling that throws out everything from the classic novel except the fact that its leads hate each other at the beginning. Unfortunately, that Austen angle delivers less than nothing at every possible opportunity. In addition to the historical inaccuracy of giving her an Elizabethan understanding of dowries as opposed to a Regency one, the movie underserves the Austen character something fierce.
Jane Austen fails to give Lilly a single piece of romantic advice that actually accomplishes anything narratively, rendering her an entirely useless high-concept plot device that is more mystifying than delightful. She is also performed with a notable lack of élan by an actress who is entirely lost at sea, as well she should be, given the way this screenplay positions her.
Unfortunately, the romantic storyline really could have used her help. The two leads have less than no chemistry together. In fact, each time Trevor showed up at any point within the first two-thirds of Love & Jane, I had already forgotten that he was a character in the movie. So without romance and without comedy, this is a pretty useless rom-com, I daresay.
Hallmark movies have a fervent commitment to genericness that tends to prevent them from scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel cinematically, and that rule does apply here as well. But this movie is so close to the bottom that it can smell oak.
Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about ‘80s slasher movies than he has any right to. He's a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.
Categories: love stories, romcoms
