So February was a busy month for me, and every Saturday was either filled with stuff, or filled with me doing something else that was not watching any of the Jane Austen films from the Hallmark channel. But Husband and Younger Son are out, and it’s raining, and I’ve finally got a minute, so here we go with An American in Austen.
The lead actress is Eliza Bennet. Did she change her name, like the actress who played Anne Shirley in the black and white Anne of Green Gables? is that her legal name? What are the odds? Heroine is a writer with writer’s block, and also a librarian. She is pushing Pride and Prejudice to an impressionable young reader, and it is in the “Romance” section of the library, and I’m sorry, but does the Dewey Decimal System really work that way? She’s got a boyfriend named Ethan, who is bringing her away from work for an anniversary dinner, and he colluded with her boss to remove her phone from her purse. Their first date was to a Foreigner concert, and that would please Husband to no end.
This is their 3rd anniversary. She’s concerned about her writer’s block, and has realized her phone is missing, and it seems it’s a proposal at the library! He’s playing a guitar badly, and he’s got library displays of their entire romance, and honestly, this is the cutest thing ever, but because this is the beginning of the movie, she says “Maybe,” to his “Will you marry me.”
She is a conflicted heroine, because even though she has a lovely guy who is supportive about her career, funny, handsome (I guess? not my taste), and one who planned an adorable proposal, that’s not enough because she’s obsessed with Darcy, a fictional guy who she wants to sweep her off her feet. Her friends are sick of her Darcy stuff too, but she makes a wish on a shooting star – wishing for Mr. Darcy. Her sassy friends are so annoyed at her. She gets in a cab, and falls asleep, and is now whisked into a carriage with tapestried upholstery, and she’s freaking out about the horse-drawnness of it all.
Up the carriage rolls to a nice looking manor house. It’s Longbourn! Mrs. Bennet calls her Harriet, and she’s apparently a Bennet cousin from America. She’s still in a shirt dress that looks like a nightgown, and she doesn’t have shoes, so the Bennets think that the Americans are rather odd, to say the least. And she thinks its a bit that someone set up for her, like an immersive experience. Her running commentary is at least amusing. And there’s an assembly in Meryton! And Lydia and Kitty are already throwing shade about the size of Harriet’s bosom, which is now trapped in a corset. Off to the assembly to meet Mr. Bingley!
Charlotte Lucas shows up and then the party from Netherfield appears, and both Lizzy and Harriet are struck by Darcy’s dark good looks. And Bingley is super adorable, and suitably struck by Jane’s beauty (they did a good job casting). Harriet is narrating the book as it is happening, because she still thinks it’s a bit, and it’s throwing Darcy for a loop – how does she know his first name?! Her awkwardness is being explained by being American. The girl playing Lizzy has terrible hair. Darcy does his whole “she’s tolerable enough” thing and Harriet storms up to confront Darcy about his weirdness, telling him Lizzy is the best thing that could happen to him, and it’s funny, and Darcy is also struck by her bravado.
At night, she’s sitting with Jane and Lizzy, and they are struck by the fact that she’s over 30 and not married. She says she’s said maybe to Ethan, despite the fact that he really loves her, and they are amazed that a girl had the power to say “maybe” to a proposal – it must be wonderful to live in America. And the penny drops that this might not be a bit set up by her erstwhile maybe fiance and she has to go lie down – which Jane and Lizzy interpret as a need because she’s so advanced in years. So much has happened before the first commercial break.
She wakes up at the crack of dawn to Kitty being creepy, and I’ve just placed who Mrs. Bennett is – she’s Clara, who is married to Fred in The Muppet Christmas Carol – the best Christmas Carol ever – so yay – glad she’s got a job.
She’s also trying to instill some guidelines in Lizzy, about how love is not a luxury a woman can afford in these trying times of uncertainly. Lizzy isn’t having it. Off they go into Meryton for onions, potatoes, Lydia and Kitty perving on soldiers in their red coats, and Harriet catches a glimpse of someone that looks like Ethan, but after chasing after him, she finally realizes that it’s 1813, and she just accosted a guy for his hat, and she faints.
Jane goes off to dine at Netherfield and sneezes appropriately. The next morning, Lizzy proposes that both she and Harriet go to Netherfield to tend to the ill oldest Bennet girl, and Harriet does her best to get out of walking the 3 miles, and, I feel you, girl. She also calls Lizzy’s love of nature lazy character development, and that’s funny, as well.
Netherfield Park! All locations filmed in Bulgaria. The girls are interrupting the Bingley breakfast, where Caroline is hungry for Darcy instead of her boiled egg, and she is very insulting when the girls show up in their muddy dresses. Lizzy goes off to see Jane, leaving Harriet to beg to see the library with Darcy, and she goes on about her love of books, including Evelina, and she mentions Ethan, and she is conflicted because Darcy is hot, and Ethan is in love with her, and she doesn’t know what to do. And Bingley is calling them both Elizabeth and Jane, and not Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth, and that’s wrong.
Caroline is still thirsting after Darcy desperately, and Darcy mentions that his sister would really like Harriet, and Harriet is like, hey, she would really love Elizabeth, and it’s back and forth and kind of uncomfortable for everyone, so Bingley rushes dinner despite the sun streaming through the windows stating that it is mid-day. Unless this is “dinner” like “lunch” and “supper” is later? Oh semantics, how fun you are!
Now it’s dark, and Harriet is walking in the dark with a lantern, and Darcy is there and calling her Harriet, and says that he finds her mind attractive. Plus he loves her remarkably white teeth, which made me laugh out loud. And then he asked her to stay another day, so she could watch him write correspondence while wandering endlessly about the room, and I totally cackled at that. She turns him down to muck out the stables, and is like, what is going on with my life. And Darcy stares after her in the dark.
Jane’s feeling better, and Harriet finally has to get it off her chest. She says that she can see the future – at least when it comes to the Bennet girls. So Jane and Elizabeth have to test her – who do they marry? And after Elizabeth had just said she doesn’t ever want to marry Darcy, Harriet says that she marries him. Lizzy is not happy about that. We’re ready for the Bennet girls to leave Netherfield, and Darcy gives Harriet a copy of Evelina. There is no handflex in this version.
Back at Longbourn – Mr. Collins has arrived! They are eating pea soup, and it’s among one of the five best pea soups he’s ever had! He’s there to look at the property and the girls, and has already been thwarted in Jane, and then says Lizzy is not agreeable, and is captured by Mary’s visage – and at least they didn’t make this Mary look terrible – and now Mr. Collins is engaged to Mary – and Harriet tries to stop it, but her Americanisms are wearing everyone out. She tries to tell Mary that she doesn’t have to marry Collins, and Mary rightly strikes back with “we don’t have the luxury of doing whatever we want when we have to take care of our families.” As much as I love Austen, and the Regency period in particular, the lack of freedom for women (oh, hey, freedoms that are going away in 21st Century America) and the utter lack of Tylenol, indoor plumbing, and general antibiotics mean that I will just gladly stay here.
Back in Meryton, they finally meet Wickham! Harriet can’t even. And Darcy, instead being weird about seeing Wickham, quotes Byron’s “She walks in beauty” and says that Harriet has inspired him to write poetry. And she calls him out on it being Byron, and he sulks off because she’s a woman who knows things. But there’s a ball at Netherfield coming!
Lizzy and Wickham are walking, and Harriet encourages Wickham to tell Lizzy about how Darcy wronged him, but then she can’t with his lies and tries to “see the future” about the truth, and it’s just more instance of bad manners, and off Wickham goes to do whatever villains do, and now it’s night at Longbourn. We are moving so fast through this book – and we’re halfway through the movie!
This ball is not very well attended, and they are all dancing so.very.slowly. And the Duchess that Bingley said was coming is actually Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. I wonder how much she got paid.
Collins meets Charlotte, and off they go to dance, and Lizzy is super annoyed at Harriet’s meddling. Duchess of York gets another spot of camera time, and it’s off-putting. But there is Darcy eyeballing Harriet from the sidelines as she dances, and then Wickham actually attends the ball?!?!?!?! WTF? Harriet is pissed that he and Lizzy go off dancing, and I’m wondering how will this all end.
Harriet escapes to the library, and Darcy is stalking her there and he’s in love with her! So much so that he walks on a table. He proposes! And Harriet finally (Finally!) realizes that she’s in love with Ethan, and that her whole ‘in love with the idea’ of someone is dumb, and she wants something real. Like the end of Schmigadoon Season 2. Darcy takes the rejection well, and leaves.
Lizzy and Wickham are dancing and being super flirty with each other, and Harriet tries to steer the ship back to Lizzy and Darcy-land, but it’s not working. And then Harriet, at night, at the window, trying to pray her way out of this, and she quotes Taylor Swift, and honestly, this is the best written Hallmark movie I’ve seen in a while. She finally realizes that love isn’t a thunderbolt from heaven, it’s the moments between the drama. Like when your husband stays up and watches Dateline with you to the end, because he knows you’ll fall asleep 40 minutes in and not find out who did it. Harriet wants to see Ethan again, and wants to go home.
Her wish on a star didn’t work – she’s still waking up at dawn with the rooster. Day after the ball, and Bingley has left Netherfield, and Harriet encourages Jane to go after him, and off to London they go!
Jane opens her mouth and tells Bingley how she feels, and how she likes his hair. Bingley doesn’t answer, but Caroline says it’s inappropriate, and they go home in despair. Apparently Charles Bingley didn’t acquit himself well in the face of such a declaration.
Harriet and Mrs. Bennet have a very nice conversation about how she does want her daughters to be happy, but that happiness is based in safety and security. And MY GOD. I have been waiting for someone in 119 movies to say exactly that.
Cue scream from Jane – Lizzy has run off with Wickham! Harriet vows to fix it. Harriet leaves the house, but Darcy is outside, practicing his apology to Harriet, which is cute. She tells him about Wickham and Lizzy, and they head off to “my father’s church” – which is NOT where you go if you want to elope in the Church of England.
Darcy is able to stop the wedding with an offer of 10,000 pounds, and Lizzy is flabbergasted that Wickham is a mercenary jerk. But all is well, because Lizzy and Darcy hold arms as they walk to the carriage. Pride and Prejudice is saved!
Harriet exits the carriage after she sees that Lizzy and Darcy are on their way to a happily ever after, and she gets out and walks, leaving them alone in a closed carriage, which is not good chaperonage. And we also learn that Collins has broken the engagement with Mary, and Mrs. Bennet is having an attack of her poor nerves, but not for long, because Bingley and Darcy have arrived!
Very cute moment of all the girls lining up facing the wrong door for the gentlemen to arrive. Bingley is proposing to Jane! Huzzah! (And we get the whole eavesdropping in the doorway totem pole thing). And Darcy and Elizabeth get to have their conversation about how they both like (like like) each other – and another proposal! And now everything is the way it should be, except for the Lydia / Wickham of it all, but to be honest, that’s fine, and so it’s almost time for Harriet to go home. We get a very cute vignette of all the happy couples dancing, and then Harriet falls asleep and magical chimes happen, and she’s back in the cab in present day America, carrying back the Evalina. She gets kicked out of the cab, but immediately gets on a city scooter back to Ethan’s house.
She confesses everything to Ethan’s doorbell buzzer, but don’t worry – he’s right there listening! She’s sorry for always giving maybes, she was just scared of being herself. She sees so clearly now, and Ethan is her wish come true, and she proposes to him, and he says “Maybe,” and they kiss and the violins swell, and it ends with her giving a reading of her new book under married name, and her married name is Goodson-Pronce. And the end.
Wow. What a journey. I really enjoyed this one. I’m lucky that my Mr. Darcy is just as sweet as Ethan is in this movie, but still looks awesome in a vest and cravat. Very good writing and giving the heroine the conceit of being modern in Regency time gave her a lot to do with asides, mannerisms, and dialogue that was enjoyable. Good for you, Hallmark Channel! This one was a joy to watch. I recommend this one – even if I watched it just so you don’t have to.
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