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By Kelly Jane Torrance
February 8, 2008

Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy star in "Becoming Jane," which focuses on author Jane Austen.

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It's Valentine's Day next week, and boys, let me tell you that one sure way to score points with your lady is to sit through an entire chick flick.

Studios are making it easy for you by offering a glut of romantic releases — some out of the ordinary — just in time for the big day.

Few women don't have a soft spot for the highbrow romance of one of the greatest novelists who ever lived. After a glut of adaptations in the last decade — how many times can you remake "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma"? — filmmakers offered two films last year that gave us Jane Austen with a twist.

The Jane Austen Book Club (Sony, $26.96 for DVD, $38.96 for Blu-ray) is based on the best-selling book of the same name. It follows six people — five women and a man — who decide to start the titular book club. Each character's life, in ways obvious and subtle, echoes an Austen novel. For Jocelyn (Maria Bello), it's "Emma": The matchmaker brings Grigg (Hugh Dancy) into the reading group for her friend Sylvia, only to find herself falling for him instead.

Sylvia (Amy Brenneman) thinks about "Persuasion" and its theme of second chances: Her husband Daniel (Jimmy Smits) leaves her for a younger woman. "There is a logic to us quitting while we're ahead," he says in a hilarious and horrifying scene.

British actress of the moment Emily Blunt plays Prudie, who is as prissy as some see Fanny Price, the heroine of "Mansfield Park." The married young teacher finds herself increasingly attracted to one of her students.

"The Jane Austen Book Club" does a good job of showing how 200-year-old books still have a lot to say. Like most romcoms, it's a little too pat in the end. But in showing how people can fall in love through books, particularly the delightful books of Jane Austen, the film makes up for its flaws with a real sense of intelligent fun.

Becoming Jane (Buena Vista, $29.99 for DVD, $34.99 for Blu-ray) is a fun, if fluffy, film that offers a fictional answer to the question: How did Jane Austen, a woman who never married, write such penetrating books about the human heart?

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