Austenland
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: August 16, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
18
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlAug 13, 2013
The ending is a bit of an audience-pleasing cop-out, a retreat into formula after 80 minutes or so of upending it. But those upendings are memorable, the cast dishy fun, and Jerusha Hess and Shannon Hale's breeze of a script (based on Hale's novel) is smart about the allure of fictional romances. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeApr 9, 2013
Hess gets her romance just grounded enough to handle the comic extremes supplied by the supporting cast. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanAug 15, 2013
Austenland is kind of a one-joke movie, and the film's rhythm is a bit flaccid, but the joke, at least, has a twinge of wit. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesMary HoulihanAug 22, 2013
It’s a romantic comedy with all sorts of possibilities that instead relies on heavy-handed sight gags and over-the-top performances. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaAug 16, 2013
All this sounds eminently promising. But it would need a wordsmith as witty and wise as Emma Thompson, who won an Oscar for adapting the big-screen version of 1995's "Sense and Sensibility," to pull it off and do Austen herself justice. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigAug 15, 2013
A humorous chick flick for well-read audiences, Austenland is a novel concept. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyOct 4, 2013
For a while, the film gets by on silliness alone. But in the end, it all amounts to no more than a sniggery guilty pleasure. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerSep 23, 2013
Fondly conceived but short of that razor-sharp Jane Austen wit. Read full review
60
Time OutSilvija OzolsAug 13, 2013
The Napoleon Dynamite cowriter-turned-director should have applied her editorial eye more consistently; Coolidge and King especially are allowed to wander into mugging far too often and for far too long. Read full review
60
The GuardianDamon WiseApr 9, 2013
It is smart and surprisingly literate, its only downfall being in that, in riffing on the work of a very talented writer on the subject of men and women, its screenplay could have used a little more of Jane Austen's immaculate sense of storytelling. Read full review
60
Film.comAmanda May MeynckeApr 9, 2013
Austenland is as light and airy as a cream puff, and as entirely unfulfilling. Fans of the book may find it amusing, but those looking for heartier romantic comedy fare would do well to look elsewhere. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallSep 11, 2013
Russell remains one of our most adorable, underused actors, although this role lacks the emotional and comedic breadth of her turn in 2007's "Waitress." Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchGail PenningtonSep 6, 2013
Austenland is as frustrating as a blind date with Almost Mr. Right. It’s impossible not to fixate on how close this was to being a lot of fun. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianJamie S. RichAug 29, 2013
The Austen cosplay is too exaggerated, as are the other guests. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie OgleAug 29, 2013
There are a few flashes of wit in the romantic comedy Austenland, but for the most part, the humor lands not with Dear Jane’s grace and style but with all the subtlety of a cholera outbreak. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 22, 2013
The pleasures are intermittent but can be located: Jennifer Coolidge, as Jane's travel companion, is funny even when the script isn't, and Feild is a nice stand-in for Colin Firth in the Austen hero department. Read full review
50
New York PostSara StewartAug 15, 2013
Twi-hards, Beliebers and Whovians have nothing on the cult of Jane Austen, whose beribboned ranks are ripe for satire. Unfortunately, this scattershot comedy only occasionally hits the mark. Read full review
50
The DissolveTasha RobinsonAug 15, 2013
Austenland embraces convention, and the result is a romantic comedy in which the ending seems not just foreordained, but promised via contract from the first moment of the film. Read full review
50
VarietyDennis HarveyApr 9, 2013
Austenland doesn’t really satirize Austen’s world (or fans) so much as use them as a pretext for a mixture of middling burlesque and routine romantic comedy. Read full review
50
The PlaylistCory EverettApr 9, 2013
There's no doubt Austen fans will find things to admire, but like the protagonist, you can’t help but leave Austenland feeling a bit unfulfilled. Read full review
40
Total FilmEmma JohnstonSep 26, 2013
Too witless to be a decent comedy, too charmless to call itself a parody, this messy adap of Shannon Hale’s novel groans under the weight of a predictable plot and explosive overacting, although Bret McKenzie wrestling awful dialogue at least brings a touch of adorability as the resort’s elfin stable lad. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesSep 4, 2013
For such a deft wit, Jane Austen sure has inspired some nitwitted entertainments. Actually, the Austen influence here is negligible. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghAug 22, 2013
Austenland plays out like an overly elaborate excuse to have people act silly in corsets and bloomers. Read full review
40
NPRElla TaylorAug 16, 2013
Austenland, a clunky broadside aimed at the cult of Jane Austen, is worth seeing primarily for its end credits, a mix of pop oil and water so joyfully dippy it might have produced a stifled giggle even in Herself. Read full review
38
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreSep 2, 2013
It’s never more than a theme park that isn’t worth the price of admission. Read full review
37
Washington PostStephanie MerryAug 22, 2013
The movie has an Austen-like plot about an Austen obsessive. And while Hess laboriously checks off so many familiar scenarios...the film doesn’t have so much of what makes Austen transcendent. Read full review
30
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisAug 15, 2013
Advancing without a single original idea or surprising moment, Austenland seems torn between poking fun at the British and lampooning Austen’s many American fanatics — a riskier enterprise, considering that they’ll be needed to fill theater seats. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceySep 19, 2013
Somewhere in literary afterlife, dear reader, Jane Austen has just rolled over and reached for her musket. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeTy BurrAug 29, 2013
Hess has made a classic rookie director mistake: Any spoof has to be at least as smart as the thing it’s spoofing, and this one’s twice as dumb. Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Aug 14, 2013
In Austenland, her directorial debut, Hess adapts a 2007 beach book into another broad comedy of caricature. It’s a truly half-assed satire, one whose senseless sensibility seems less informed by the best of English literature than the worst of Saturday Night Live. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierAug 16, 2013
The missed opportunities in Austenland are more numerous than dowry-less sourpusses at a ball in a Jane Austen novel. Read full review
10
The New YorkerAnthony LaneAug 31, 2013
So lazy is the characterization, so hamstrung the plot, and so chronically broad the overacting that the main interest lies in deciding which to block first, your eyes or your ears. [2 Sept. 2013, p.81]
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