Robin Swicord
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Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
Pride and Prejudice (1940)
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
influenced The Jane Austen Book Club (2007)
Themes Plot
Robin Swicord’s The Jane Austen Book Club, from her own screenplay, based on the eponymous novel by Karen Joy Fowler, succeeds only partially and only intermittently in establishing connections between six contemporary central Californian members of a Jane Austen book club and the Regency England characters in Austen’s six novels, which, in case you’ve forgotten, are Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion.
The setting is Sacramento, where five women and one man meet to discuss Jane Austen's novels while their lives come together and pull apart in ways that seem lifted from the pages of "Emma" and "Pride and Prejudice," et al.
Robin Swicord’s The Jane Austen Book Club, from her own screenplay, based on the eponymous novel by Karen Joy Fowler, succeeds only partially and only intermittently in establishing connections between six contemporary central Californian members of a Jane Austen book club and the Regency England characters in Austen’s six novels, which, in case you’ve forgotten, are Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion.
The setting is Sacramento, where five women and one man meet to discuss Jane Austen's novels while their lives come together and pull apart in ways that seem lifted from the pages of "Emma" and "Pride and Prejudice," et al.
If this were any other actor than Cranston (say, if “Mad Men’s” Jon Hamm or “American Beauty” star Kevin Spacey were playing the same role), it would be unbearable.
It taps into a deep vein of American angst at social conformity, explored before by everyone from Henry David Thoreau to “American Beauty.”
She was also nominated for a writing Oscar for her work on David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
From a short story by E. L. Doctorow, the writer-director Robin Swicord, who adapted the screenplays for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Memoirs of a Geisha, among others, has constructed an inspired and compelling film about one man with the courage and daring to walk away from the boring routine of daily life and observe it from a distance, putting into motion what everyone else thinks about but never has the guts to do.
Adapted from an E.L. Doctorow short story published by the New Yorker three months after the release of Robin Swicord ’s “The Jane Austin Book Club,” this follow-up took writer-director Swicord more than eight years to get made (in between, she earned an Oscar nomination for a little movie called “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”).
Primarily a screenwriter (Memoirs of a Geisha, Little Women), Swicord toiled for over a decade on the award-winning The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, on which she shared story credit.
That’s the simple, revealing and darkly comic premise of “Wakefield,” a film by writer (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) turned writer-director Robin Swicord, a movie meditation on marriage, family and surviving both by taking the time to examine what’s wrong.
In fact, she’s built a career on it with films ranging from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button all the way to Matilda.
Jocelyn (Maria Bello, "A History of Violence," "World Trade Center") is a determinedly single Rhodesian Ridgeback breeder who impulsively invites Grigg (Hugh Dancy, "Ella Enchanted," "Evening"), a stranger who mistakes her for a hotel 'Buffy' conventioneer, to join their club to extend his literary knowledge beyond sci-fi.
Swicord's writing credits include Little Women, Memoirs of a Geisha, Matilda, and Practical Magic.
From a short story by E. L. Doctorow, the writer-director Robin Swicord, who adapted the screenplays for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Memoirs of a Geisha, among others, has constructed an inspired and compelling film about one man with the courage and daring to walk away from the boring routine of daily life and observe it from a distance, putting into motion what everyone else thinks about but never has the guts to do.
Primarily a screenwriter (Memoirs of a Geisha, Little Women), Swicord toiled for over a decade on the award-winning The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, on which she shared story credit.
She's a solid writer and occasional director with a literary bent - "Memoirs of a Geisha," "The Jane Austen Book Club," the 1994 "Little Women."
A bad sign when the only female in the creative process is Swicord, who, by working as a Mata Hari, as it were, as the woman behind The Jane Austen Book Club and Memoirs of a Geisha , has arguably done more harm to her gender than Michael Bay.
"The Jane Austen Book Club," adapted from Karen Joy Fowler's 2004 bestseller by screenwriter and first-time director Robin Swicord ("Practical Magic"), transfers that spirit to today's hectic world of cell phones, spinning classes and supermarket parking-lot gridlock.
I don’t know if that’s down to director Robin Swicord, making her feature-film debut here: she wrote the scripts for such icky, Hollywoodized depictions of womanhood as Memoirs of a Geisha and Practical Magic , and adapted this script from the novel by Karen Joy Fowler , or if this is a flaw in the novel itself.