Ralph Nelson/Sony Pictures Classics

The Jane Austen Book Club

Rated PG-13

Starring: Kathy Baker, Maria Bello, Amy Brenneman, Emily Blunt, Maggie Grace, Hugh Dancy, Jimmy Smits

“The Jane Austen Book Club,” about a group of five women and one man whose lives are changed by reading Jane Austen’s works, is quite possibly the most “chick flick-ish” movie to hit screens since “The First Wives Club” or maybe even “Steel Magnolias” — and I mean that in the best way possible. The movie takes all the ingredients of the best Austen novels — laughter, tears, romance, male eye-candy and female bonding — and combines all of it into a film that manages to make reading classic literature sound exciting (something you don’t find too often in Hollywood fare). There are strong performances all around, notably from Emily Blunt and Maria Bello, as two of the women in the book club. And if this film doesn’t make you want to immediately head to the nearest bookstore to form your own book club, you should probably go see it again.
—Dayna Gross