SeemsSensible

I just saw this. The first review I saw here (also titled "I don't get it" and also 5 stars, summed up my feelings, so I won't repeat all that it said. (Except, and I suppose a minor point, but as that other review mentioned, some of the actors are way too old for the roles, e.g., Billie Lourd is 27 and looks 27.) And it strains plausibility at times. (Miss Fine just happened to have a sequined dress in Beanie Feldstein's size in her car?)

I read two glowing reviews, on AVClub and Vulture, and it has a 97% critical consensus on RottenTomatoes, so clearly critics are liking it. I just don't understand why.

I don't have know how many times I've seen Lady Bird, a far superior high school movie (in which Beanie F. costarred). This isn't a bad movie; it's a bit scattered tonally, and I kept reading that the characters weren't the usual high school stereotypes and were fleshed out, when actually that's not true.

It is...mildly witty. I guess see it and see what you think if you're curious. Word of mouth will be the ultimate determination of its success. For me, it's vastly overhyped.

The movie has a promising start and is decent for the first hour; there are no belly laughs but some mildly amusing moments (a couple). Ike Barinholtz is good, though he's basically Morgan from The Mindy Project. John Cena shows the same earnest charm that he did in Trainwreck, and is exceedingly game here. Leslie Mann is Leslie Mann.

But after an hour, around the time the parents' car flips and is stuck vertically on its end, the movie descends into, first, mindless silliness and implausibility, and second, aching predictability. (Also, Gary Cole: WTF are you doing in this?)

It's a slog getting to the end, which begins to seem will never come. Judd Apatow is not a producer, but it felt like one of his movies, which are always easily 20 minutes too long. Although in this case about an hour too long.

I don't know who the audience is for this movie. Right-wingers are decrying it as some sort of anti-Trump political correctness (it's not; Cena's wife is Indian, so their daughter is biracial; one of the other three girls is a lesbian. So basically it's what the real world looks like in 2018. Sorry, straight white Christians, the '50s are long gone and not coming back). The movie's greater sin is that it's just not funny.

I'm sure I can add nothing to the 401 reviews, the majority of them 10 stars (and a 9.0 rating overall; I have never seen anything like it on IMDB). But I just finished the final episode and wanted to chime in with my approbation (um, I think I've adapted that early-19th-century way of speaking).

It's been such a pleasure to watch this over the past week, and such a wonderful diversion. I've never read Jane Austen (though now I want to) and have never seen any adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, though I knew some very basics of the plot and main characters.

But how expertly cast this was. Other than Colin Firth, I believe Lucy Davis (as Maria Lucas) was the only other actor I knew going into it. And it was shot so beautifully: There were scenes at Pemberley that looked like paintings.

Wonderful story, wonderful cast, a miniseries that richly deserves all these glowing reviews.