nukhetagar

I love the premise of someone from the modern world, who has read the book, finding themselves in the midst of their favourite book. I first saw the same premise in a BBC miniseries Lost in Austen, which did a superb job with it. This movie starts off similarly, but unfortunately makes too many choices for the characters in the book that are pretty out of character. I particularly did not like what they did with the two main characters (Liz and Darcy). It just didn't seem like the writers really understood these characters at all.

But if you want a better version of a similar premise, navigate to Lost in Austen. I can't recommend that enough.

All in all, if you don't already know the original books, you might enjoy this. If you do, I'd suggest watching something else.

Disclaimer that I first watched the "the making of" documentary as I do love how movies (or in this case, a semi autobiographical movie/musical/show) is made. Watching the background did give me some expectations, but mostly in a way that lowered my initial expectations. JLo really does not need to do anything like this, and it seemed like it was going to be a very self obsessed and potentially weird experience. Yet I still was intrigued enough to watch the movie.

In some ways, I was right: it is pretty different than most things you'll see out there. Is it an autobiographical account of JLo's actual experiences? Not a direct one, but yes, heavily influenced by it and very personal. Is it a movie? Kind of... there is a a story and a theme there and our hero does get a good ending (without spoiling what the actual theme is, the fact that it is very personal makes it pretty good too). The music is not bad either, you'll probably enjoy at least 2 or 3 songs in there (I particularly loved the ballad).

So, treat it as what it is supposed to be: something different than most things out there, not quite a movie but also maybe it is, and an intriguing watch of self exploration. Honestly, get into it with absolutely no expectations because there is not much to base this experience on. You might enjoy yourself. Among the many movies and shows that are just a repetition of oh-so-many others we've already seen, this is different...and that's not bad.