#119 – Paging Mr. Darcy

Hard to believe that it has been more than a year since I’ve done one of these, but life has a weird way of kicking you in the butt sometimes, and you need a ton of time to recover enough to want to watch movies where no one ever has to work or buy food or worry about if their flexible spending is going to max out before they get new glasses. I have some Christmas movies in my DVR, but this past holiday season was a whirlwind of school concerts, last minute meetings, and a wonderful vacation, all of which meant – I didn’t get to any of them. However! When I saw that Hallmark was doing a Jane Austen fest for February (oh, I’m sorry, “Loveuary”), well, you only have to look at my back catalog to know that I would be there with bells on. So first up – Paging Mr. Darcy!

We start with someone highlighting the first line of Pride and Prejudice, and then cut immediately to our heroine, in glasses, reading P&P on a plane next to a guy who asks if she likes romance. To which heroine immediately takes umbrage because Jane Austen was not a romance author. I will fight you, even though I know this is just for character development.

She is a Professor, with an Austen specialty. She’s on the plane on her way to be a keynote speaker at an Austen conference, aka ”JALA.” She does not like the many, many fans who come to the conferences in costume, who like to wear bonnets, who practice their country dances. But she’s up for a job at Princeton, and someone named Victoria will be there, who is on the hiring committee, hence she’s en route. The guy is hardcore flirting with her and she pushes him off with her (not well worn) copy of P&P. If you are an Austen scholar, your books should not look like they just came off the shelf at Barnes and Noble. They should be dog-eared, and full of notes, and you should have many copies. She is not impressing me much right now.

End of the flight, she gave the guy a reading list and took her book back.

She has a little sister who is expecting a proposal while she’s in her kitchen making a smoothie. Her sister is pushing her to meet someone, hey, you could meet your own personal Mr. Darcy, and heroine is pooh-pooing this idea until she sees hero in a top hat, cravat and waistcoat holding a sign with her name on it. Turns out her name is Eloise Cavendish, and he’s there to pick her up for the conference. Eloise is not amused. She doesn’t like to be the center of attention, and doesn’t like the fact that people are staring, doesn’t like people in costume. His name is Sam Lee, he is her conference liaison and after she wrongly assumes that she can get a Lyft, she grudgingly accepts a ride in his compact Mitsubishi.

She’s checking in, but that gets interrupted because her sister has just been dropped off, sobbing, by sister’s boyfriend Rob. Yet again, Eloise is all, people are staring, and they head off to her suite. Turns out her sister is a Marianne, and she just got dumped. Eloise immediately asks what her sister (Mia) did to drive her man away. She is not very supportive, but she does offer to get ice cream. Back in the lobby, she runs into a former student, Jenny, who has written a play called “The Complete Works of Jane Austen, Abridged” and will be casting and rehearsing over the weekend. As an actor – that’s just not enough time to put together a good play, even if your entire cast is full of Janeites in their own costumes. Eloise is not thrilled about it, but she gets distracted by Sam Lee as Mr. Darcy doing selfies with conference goers.

Methinks something happened to her when she went to a Jane Austen conference when she was 15, and she is closing off her entire life to fun because of it. She totally disses Sam’s interest in reserving her hand for the first two dances and she runs off to network with Victoria in the tea room. Victoria takes tea very seriously, and has her own timer for steeping. Wondering where to get one of those. Victoria LOVES her conference friends who are in costume, and Eloise is taken aback, because Victoria rightly calls out those literature snobs who look down their noses at fun. So Eloise has to immediately pretend to love everything about the JALA land. AND it turns out that Sam Lee is Victoria’s nephew. And Sam is rightfully making fun of Eloise by saying she knows all about country dancing and Victoria is eating it up. Before he can talk about Eloise’s choice of gowns (muslin, naturally) Eloise leaves the tea room with Sam in tow, telling him that she doesn’t like being the center of attention, but she’s here for serious, Princeton job hunting reasons. Sam says he’ll help her get the job, because he needs to get a washed up former Willoughby away from Victoria. The two form an agreement.

Sister Mia is watching Unleashing Mr. Darcy in the hotel room and crying. Eloise comes back with ice cream that is Jane themed, and I wonder why that is not available now. Pralines and Prejudice, or Mansfield Chunk. How do the makers of this ice cream, because it is in pint form, with FDA information on the side of it, so it comes from somewhere, market this beyond the one or two Jane conferences throughout the year? How do they break even? Why am I on this tangent? Oh, it’s because I don’t care about Mia the sister, who is complaining that yes, her boyfriend Rob DID propose, but he did it in the kitchen, like it was an afterthought, and that was just not romantic enough for Mia, especially he brought up the fact that their finances align, etc etc. I swear, I get it, Mia, but I still think this character sucks.

Morning arrives, and Sam calls at Eloise’s room in his hunting suit (Bottle green jacket, buff breeches). Eloise gets distracted by a bookseller in the ballroom who has a first edition Cowper – I’m sorry, I do not believe that is something a) that would be at this event or b) she would recognize that from 5 feet away. Also, and this is nit-picky, to be honest, but Eloise pronounces it “Cow-per,” when Jane Austen would have referred to his work as “Coo-per” so as an Austen scholar, she should have known that. But maybe she never ever heard an English person pronounce the name and thus is only familiar with it being in print. Whatever. I don’t look to Hallmark movies for authenticity in 18th century poets. Sam drags her to the costume lady, Kelsey, who is his old friend from high school, and Eloise finds out that Sam basically created the software that powers Hallmark’s version of Etsy. Eloise freaks out about the costume idea, and settles on some cheap white gloves, and Kelsey is super annoyed about Eloise not wanting to dress up.

The Wanna Be Willoughby is ready to charm Victoria, so Sam has Eloise run interference, and she’s terrible at it. Also, she says there is a talk at the conference on Wickham, and if he can be considered a villain. I’m sorry. Did these people read the damn book? Wickham is the FREAKING VILLAIN of the book. Because he acts without thinking of other people, and is careless with them. He is NOT someone who can be redeemed, even if he looks like Matthew Goode in Death Comes to Pemberley.

My God, if you’re gonna have a talk about who can be a villain, why not talk about John Thorpe (arguably not the main on in Northanger Abbey) or Henry Crawford (I make a case that Mary sucks more) or Frank Churchill (because he is boring AF). But to argue that Wickham might not be a villain is just Dumb.

Off Eloise goes to the bonnet making room, where she quotes Lydia Bennett, and makes a good impression on Victoria about how Lydia views men as interchangeable, just like bonnets. And Eloise realizes that she had fun making a bonnet with lilies of the valley on it. But they have to go practice dancing, so they go to an under construction garden to do it. The dance is called the “After Dinner Maggot.” What the hell is this crap. She’s terrible, and he’s a terrible teacher. I’m sorry, but if you’ve watched ANY Jane Austen interpretation, you should be able to figure out some kind of country dance. But they are flirting and dancing and then she runs away upset because she just CANT BE THE CENTER OF ATTENTION.

Eloise complains that she and her sister are literally Elinor and Marianne. And she just can’t stand the shame of someone thinking that she’s an unmarried woman in her thirties looking for her Mr. Darcy. And now we get the backstory – she went to a conference when she was fifteen, bought a dress and had a great time, but when she got home and wore the dress at homecoming, the children in her high school didn’t get the memo that an empire waist is pretty, and made her feel terrible. Sam Lee tells her that the children in her high school were terrible, and he says maybe there was a boy nerd at the dance who thought she was neat (because that’s who he was in high school). 

Sam likes to dress up as Mr. Darcy because he hates the tech bros he has to work with on a day to day basis. They both like each other. She’s dancing in his tall beaver hat. But their gazing into each other eyes gets disrupted by Victoria, who tells us that there is a problem with the caterers! Quelle Horreur! However, Eloise can help because she taught a seminar on Regency cooking.

Cold meats, salad, fruit for 120 people needed, and Eloise is super distracted by Sam in a non-puffy shirt. Sam figures out to go to a fake Subway to order the meat and fruit, and then off to the kitchen for a baking montage for syllabub and Shrewsbury cakes. No joke, syllabub sounds gross. I think its like lemony meringue or something. I don’t know. And Shrewsbury cakes look like butter cookies. And when they are done, Sam is making her an omelet, and we learn how close Sam is with his aunt, and we also learn that he’s trying to figure out how to work out of Princeton, NJ for the non-profit of his dreams.

Mia meets Sam, and is all “who is that and tell me everything.” Mia also sent herself flowers. Mia also says that Sam seems the type to make himself a fool for love. Do we want that? Mia, as the personification of someone who lives for the drama, definitely wants that.

Aunty Victoria is telling Sam to be honest about any feelings he has about Eloise. The opposite of a Lady Catherine.

Eloise is now on the phone with Mia’s boyfriend Rob, telling him that he needs to basically give a big romantic gesture to win her back. Duh. How do you live with someone, get to the point of proposing, and not realize what a person would respond to and what they wouldn’t respond to? These people aren’t real people. But Eloise can’t dwell on it too much because Sam has taken her to a random museum that is featuring Jane’s letters to her sister, Cassandra. They talk about Jane, and about Eloise. They are flirting in the stacks.

She’s having fun. It’s a very foreign concept for her. You can’t appreciate Austen if you don’t ever have fun. Northanger Abbey makes me giggle every single damn time I read it, and P&P is laugh-out-loud enjoyable. I mean, even her letters to Cassandra sparkle with wit and shade. Eloise does neither. I can’t imagine taking her class.

Lawn Party Time. Lots of people in muslin, and Sam is now super embarrassed by being accosted by a Tech Bro who used to know him. And that guy is a Tool, how dare he make Sam feel bad. Eloise stands up for him, which is nice. And they are flirting again, and now Mia shows up in a red dress, sneakers, and Eloise’s bonnet, and off they go to play lawn games. Sam goes to partner Mia to push Eloise to partner with Victoria, and they are off to play bowling, and Eloise is terrible, but she’s super distracted by Mia being he rself, i.e, a big drama flirt girl, to Sam. Boyfriend Rob shows up with roses, and now there’s a big scene, and Mia is acting like a big freaking baby, and demands more attention. And Rob leaves in a huff, Mia tells Eloise it’s none of her business, and Victoria goes off to fake a Bridgerton scene with a set of Paille Maille.

Now Jenny the playwright accosts Eloise because she needs a Darcy and Elizabeth, and Eloise is all ready to say yes to playing Elizabeth, but Mia hogs the spotlight and takes over. And Eloise is Super Jealous, but she finds out from Kelsey the costumer (who is now helping out with this play) that Sam is really good with a script, but is shy without it. And then Victoria shows up to the outdoor rehearsal with pizza, and no joke, this is super gross looking pizza. She gets to have a heart-to-heart with Eloise about life, and love, and the idea about always needing to grab onto the Darcy in your life, if you are lucky enough to find one. But Eloise is all like, “What if you’re not an Elizabeth?” and leaves Sam and Mia to be weird onstage together.

Playtime! It’s literally the greatest Austen one lines – with some weird dancing, and questionable hairstyles, and Mia makes it look like she kisses Sam, which makes Eloise super upset, and at the afterparty, Mia is being even more unhelpful by spilling the beans to Victoria that Eloise wants the job in Princeton, and makes Eloise look like a liar because she says Eloise is all serious and how dare people dress up in costume. And now we have the come to Jesus, Mia moment that we’ve been waiting for, because Mia is a spoiled younger sister that Eloise constantly has to rescue and she’s gosh darn tired of it. Sam chases after her by the elevator bank, but Eloise has a mental breakdown and takes it out on Sam, and it makes Sam be super honest with her about his behavior, which is SO refreshing. No Sad Times due to not talking here! Well, we’re in half Sad Times, because Eloise is not being honest with her feelings, but props to the writers for having an emotionally mature hero in this movie.

Mia comes in to apologize, and she realizes she’s a Marianne, and Eloise is an Elinor. They’ve made up.

Next morning, there is a coffee, croissant, and flowers and a card from Mia waiting for Eloise when she wakes up. It’s the day of her speech. It sounds ok, but we don’t hear much because of the music track over it, but people seem to like it. And Victoria loves it enough to offer Eloise the job. And now it’s not too late for Eloise to get a dress for the ball!

Ball Time! And Rob shows up in a frock coat and a ring and proposes! And Mia says yes before he can get the words out, and everyone is so happy! And we found out that Sam helped Rob with the outfit and the proposal, and isn’t that Darcyish of him.

Eloise has to give a speech before the dance commences. Sam shows up without his costume, and Eloise’s speech is about romance and how she’s scared of it, and offers up her dance card to Sam, if he wants a place on it. And we also find out that the Wanna Be Willoughby is all smiles and is in love with Victoria, and I think I missed a plot point when we had a minor flooding emergency, because I always thought that Sam was pushing Willoughby away from Victoria in a romantic sense, but apparently Sam thought Willoughby was up for the same job Eloise was. And apparently Sam is perfectly fine with Willoughby loving his Aunt Victoria. Who the hell knows, but all the secrets come out in the dance, and they kiss and it’s over.

Oh My Word, there was so much in this movie. Was it terrible? No. Was it predictable. Of course. Was it swoony? No. Was it nice? Yeah, sure. Did it celebrate the genius that is Jane Austen? Yes. Is that what we should all care about? Also yes. Don’t care what Charlotte Bronte or Mark Twain or any other hater has to say, Jane Austen is the freaking best. So this was a nice way to welcome myself back to the world of Hallmark movies, because I watched Paging Mr. Darcy, just so you don’t have to.