1. Clueless. We were actually shocked how much we still like this film. It's fun, it's light and makes some pretty clever references to Emma. It's the perfect guilty pleasure movie. Also, Cher has a character arc that's pretty rare to see in a teen romance.
2. Death Comes to Pemberley. First of all, the fact that Wickham would in ANY shape or form care about Lydia at all is pretty egregious, so that should already tell you how knowledgeable the people who made this are about Austen's works (that includes the author of the book this miniseries is based on). And poor Colonel Fitzwilliam, what have they done to you!?!?!? But they did manage to make Lizzy's and Mr Darcy's relationship somewhat believable, and that is this series' only saving grace.
3. Austenland. Ok, this is incredibly cheesy and we don't much care for this film, but it does have some good things in it. For example, the main character learns to live in the real world and stop living in a fantasyland perpetuated by the chick-lit/flick industry. It is super sappy and clearly written by a Mormon with Mormon understanding of Austen's creations. It could be a lot worse, though.
4. Bride & Prejudice. Again, this one could be a lot worse. It shares the same misconception that all adaptations (apart from one) of Pride & Prejudice have - the misunderstanding. Mr. Darcy is actually a decent man instead of an asshole and the conflict is all about miscommunication and not about a transformation of both Mr. Darcy's and Lizzy's characters. We don't watch much Bollywood, so we can't really comment on that aspect of the movie.
5. The Jane Austen Book Club. What annoys us about this one, is the reading of Austen's novels from a modern perspective - no, not the "Charlotte is a lesbian" - stuff, but the fact that they insist that these books are all about romance. They don't really talk about female experiences or how Austen could be interpreted from a feminist perspective. No, in the end it's all about boys (and romance) and not about a woman's inner thoughts and experiences, which is what Austen largely focused on (with some well-executed romance thrown in the mix).
6. Becoming Jane. They claim this is based on Jane Austen's life. It is not. This movie is completely inspired by the modern interpretation of Austen's books. It is your standard "lovers separated by society" - cliché, and come to think of it, wouldn't even be anything that Austen would write. If she had, this is not what it would look like, not even close. Needless to say, this has nothing to do with Austen's real life. If you are interested in seeing a dramatization of Austen's life, watch Miss Austen Regrets. At least in that one they make it clear that what she wrote was fiction and during her lifetime might as well have been pure fantasy. Both James McAvoy and Anne Hathaway have done much better. And for God's sake, never make Anne Hathaway do an English accent ever again.
7. Pride & Prejudice and Zombies. Jesus Christ, this is one huge turd of a movie. Granted, the source material is incredibly lazy and only capitalizing on the Austen - craze going on. This doesn't have any characters of Austen that one would recognize or really anyone that you'd even wanna root for. The concept is quite brilliant, but the book or the film do it no justice whatsoever. This is just another romance disguised as an action film - and not even a good one by any standards.
8. Lost in Austen. P&P and Zombies is a piece of shit but this bs takes it to a whole 'nother level. This is downright offensive. EVERYTHING in this is wrong. The worst thing about this mess is that it plays into the unhealthy idea that women would have somehow been treated better by men in Austen's time. No. Just no. And hey, why does she have to exchange her world, where she has some tangible rights, to a world where she has no rights, for a dude?!?!?!?!? Why didn't they flip it around? Here it would've actually made some sense and we wouldn't hate on this so much. He (Mr. Darcy) would have much more of a chance to succeed and have a life in the modern world than a woman would've had in the Regency era. Fuck this shit! Plus, they clearly don't know anything about the characters, if they think even for one second that Jane would've married Mr. Collins. Even if Jane had consented, her father would have never allowed it. It was nice to see our fantasy of kicking Mr. Collins in the nuts, but everything else about this is literally the worst.
