The Jane Austen Book Club

I saw a movie last week. Great movie, a character study of sorts, the respective characters and plots and life lessons presented in neat parallel universes.

On its surface, 'The Jane Austen Book Club'' is a tidy number, a perfectly cut and polished little gem with just enough facets. It is a portrait of a California reading group. The action takes place over several months in a university town near Sacramento and the book club comprises five women and one man.

As the members gather on a cool March evening to discuss ''Emma.'' Their hostess, Jocelyn, is a ''control freak'' who has not only organized the club, picked the members and chosen the first book but is also a breeder of aristocratic show dogs. The club meetings are peppered with the requisite literary patter. But the focus is about the members themselves, their stories told in detours and digressions. As the story unravels, it reveals a varied bunch.

Jocelyn, in her early 50's, has never married. Sylvia, her best friend from childhood, has learned that her husband is leaving her for another woman. Sylvia's gorgeous 30-year-old daughter, Allegra, is an artist, a lesbian who has just broken up with her girlfriend. Prudie, a 28-year-old high school French teacher, is married but vaguely discontented. The eccentric Bernadette, single at 67, has had multiple husbands, including a movie mogul and a politician. Grigg, a temp in the linguistics department at the university and a tech support guy, is in his early 40's and a science fiction fan.

Each of these members has ''a private Austen'' and sees the books through different eyes, revealing the proprietary attitudes some of them assume. Each of the members brings something different to the club, something at once comic, affecting and lyrical. This is a surprising movie, and there isn't a boring line in it.

This is a highly recommended "must-see" movie. Order it from Netflix or Blockbuster soon.