An American in Austen

This is the third offering in Hallmark's Jane Austen inspired 2024 February Love-uary and it might be my favorite so far. It was unexpected and a delight.

The story tells of Harriet (played by an honest to goodness Eliza Bennett!) a writer and librarian, whose wonderful boyfriend Ethan proposes to her in a very romantic way...to which she responds "maybe" because she has fantasies in her head about the fictional Mr. Darcy and how she thinks love is supposed to feel. After over imbibing, Harriet wakes up inside of the Pride and Prejudice story as the American cousin Harriet to the Bennett sisters.

This is where the story gets interesting as Harriet with her prior knowledge of the plot...ends up interfering and turning the story on its ear, only to have regret and have to right the ship all over again.

Needless to say the whole experience gives her new perspective on her real life.

This was a fun twist to Pride and Prejudice that I had never seen before and I found it thoroughly delightful. I thought the main actress Liza Bennett did a wonderful job and I appreciated Hallmark's attempt at a historical set...enough so I can overlook the very modern front and back chain drop earrings worn by a Georgian era character. It was a bit of a surprise to see an actual British royal playing the role of "The Duchess".

This is a big recommendation to both Jane Austen fans and romantics alike!

Librarian Harriet Goodson (Eliza Bennett) is struggling to write her first novel. Her boyfriend makes the big proposal and she can only respond with Maybe. Her favorite book is Pride and Prejudice. She wakes up magically inside the book as an American cousin and meets her fantasy crush Mr. Darcy (Nicholas Bishop).

Eliza Bennett is a lovely actress and she plays a good fish out of water. It is a little funny that the British actress is playing an American in this British classic. Heck, her name is Eliza Bennett. It's very meta. The Hallmark production looks rather TV movie level despite the grand locations. It could be better. The story is a fun and often-done concept. More could be used for comedy. Maybe she doesn't like the food or the makeup is bad. They do the corset and the carriage rides. Those are a little funny. This just needs to push for more humor. The Bennet sisters are really only characters in a book. They don't have the latitude to be real people. It's all up to Harriet. I want her to run around and struggling in this old timey society to get things right.

Out of all the Jane Austen Hallmarks (2024), this one has impressed me the most.

Harriet is a struggling writer with a supporting boyfriend that loves her deeply. Despite their short on screen time, their chemistry is unquestionable and is more enjoyable than most couples in recent Hallmark feature films.

Harriet, after a series of events, finds herself in the story of Pride & Prejudice living out the plot of the book as the American cousin of the Bennett girls. Her involvement in their story brings many twists and turns, especially since she knows the story.

The humour in the movie is clever and current, with the lead actress being an absolute star in the movie. She delivers an outstanding performance that sells Harriet wonderfully. By the end, you're rooting for her and her quirkiness.

Moreover, the set and costume of this film is OUTSTANDING. Undeniably, one of the best dressed Hallmarks I've seen in a long time. They captured the time and location wonderfully, as if you were watching a feature film of Pride & Prejudice. It made me wish I were booking a flight overseas to experience what I watched in the movie.

Overall, this Hallmark is a fun watch with an ending that is different by Hallmarks standards. Even if you're not too familiar with Jane Austin's work, this movie does a great job with capturing the emotion, comedy and romance of some of the best.

I'm more of a Jane Austen fan than a HM one, so I was interested in this series of HM films, but didn't expect much - and so far, HM did not disappoint - it was the traditional Hallmark formulaic script and C-list casting...until now. I'm American, so I feel like a bit of a traitor in saying this, but I suspect it's because this production would be more appropriately called "A Brit in Austen" - and not just bc the one "American" is actually a British actress, but bc it appears the whole thing was shot across the pond, and the Brits did do HM better, from the script to the costumes to the sets to the cast, this was elevated HM fare. Enough so that I wished it had had a slightly longer runtime, to flesh out some of the side stories more fully....so my only criticism would be that it was a bit too short and that the bookstore ending was a return to HM cliche, and felt a little bit like a letdown after having reached a higher level of film-making. If the budget works for British productions, HM should do more of these, but...give the writers/directors an extra hour of run time. Carry on with the royal cameos, though! That's hilarious and unexpected!

To be fair, I am a Jane Austen purist. Which means that I'm probably way pickier about the way her work is presented than 90% of the people who will watch this movie.

I thought the romance between Harriet and her romantic interest was really sweet, and that's literally the reason this gets so high of a rating.

However, I had a ton of issues with the PnP side of the movie. I thought at first that Harriet was going to end up with Darcy, and I couldn't stand that. I almost quit the movie until I realized that wasn't going to happen :) All the characters in Austen's world were very flat, which I thought was a really interesting storytelling choice because it really made you focus on Harriet, who seemed so alive, even in a large crowd of people. However, the book characters are anything but their actual counterpart.

Mr Bennet: instead of a sardonic man, we see a loving father invested in his daughter's marriage.

Mrs. Bennet: Far from being a silly woman, she rather expressed eloquently why it is so important to get her daughters married off. What??

Jane: Jane was bolder than she should have been, but all around she and the Bingleys were the only people who felt in character.

Lizzy: I am really sorry, because I wanted to love this Lizzy so much. But she came across as abrasive and a little mean. Lizzy's wit is not harsh, in fact most of PnP she's laughing at the other characters and they don't even know it. She doesn't mock them. She's not derisive, she's amused by her family's antics. Plus, she is so consumed with preventing Lydia from running off that she would never in a million years consider doing it herself.

Mary: Not much to say, but where are the religious anecdotes? Where is the proud, modest girl? She just seems like one of the rest of them, and that's not Mary.

Kitty: Pretty good rendition of Kitty. There's not much you can do with her character.

Lydia: She was okay, but not forward enough. Lydia is loud and showy, but this girl never pushed herself out in front to get attention like the book-Lydia would do.

Darcy: What isn't wrong with him? I tried so hard to like him, but they messed up his insult to Lizzy (how could they do that!?) and then proceeded to make him do so many out of character things that I stopped liking him about halfway through the movie. In fact, at one point, he corners a young lady in a garden, telling her he loves her, and tries to kiss her, all after meeting her like twice. What????? Darcy is THE epitome of gentlemanliness (well, mostly. Knightley from Emma is better lol) This is so out of character it's baffling to me.

Bingley and Caroline: Pretty good. Honestly, one of the better portrayals I've seen of Bingley. Caroline was, well, Caroline.

Wickham: The point of running away with Lydia and lying to Elizabeth was to hurt Darcy, because he loved Lizzy, and since that didn't happen, there was little to no explanation for why he did what he did.

There were other small things, like the lack of gloves or forgettable side plots that I didn't like.

I enjoyed this movie, but it wasn't really Pride and Prejudice. However, it was a really fun movie and Eliza Bennett carried the whole thing for me. I really love her performances, and that's ultimately why I liked this.