Calling all Janeites, book clubbers and romantically-minded females, there’s a new movie in town that you need to see – Austenland! Sony Pictures Classics’ Austenland is a romantic comedy set in a fictional English theme park which recreates the Jane Austen’s Regency world, replete with bonnets, carriage rides, whist and needlepoint. Based on the 2007 novel by Shannon Hale, the film stars Keri Russell as Jane Hayes, a thirty-something American singleton who blows her savings to cross the Atlantic and stay at a plush country estate where she can channel her inner Austen and, perhaps, find a Darcy-esque Mr. Right.

Austenland is one of those movies I knew I wanted to see as soon as I heard the title. This movie is witty. You will be laughing out loud. The cast was magnificent in their silliness. It’s Jennifer Coolidge’s funniest role since Best in Show. If I had not known better, I would have thought that I had written this script. But, I don’t want to give anything away and spoil the experience; just go and enjoy.

I have a confession…I am obsessed with Jane Austen. My love affair started when I was 10 years-old, and I open the pages of Pride & Prejudice, and my life was forever changed. Later in life, I became of a lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. Yes, there is such an organization. I have dressed in period clothing, danced and laughed with other Jane Austen fans. I have written about finding your Mr. Darcy, as I was lucky to find mine. What’s not to love about a girl gets the dashing guy that has the big castle, and they live happily ever after! “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife…”