A sad effort at what might have been good comedy.

A very boring movie about arts funding and theater troupe acting out

Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Reeve, and Madeleine Potter in The Bostonians (1984)

Bernadette Peters in Slaves of New York (1989)

Greta Scacchi, Julie Christie, and Shashi Kapoor in Heat and Dust (1983)

Raquel Welch and James Coco in The Wild Party (1975)

Uma Thurman, Nick Nolte, and Jeremy Northam in The Golden Bowl (2000)

Isabelle Adjani, Alan Bates, Maggie Smith, and Anthony Higgins in Quartet (1981)

Anne Baxter and Robert Powell in Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980)

Richard Robbins and James Ivory in Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980)

Sean Young, Charles McCaughan, and Nancy New in Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980)

Sean Young and Anne Baxter in Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980)

David Redden

Michael Wager

Robert Powell

Jane Austen

Samuel Richardson

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Two teachers vie for the right to stage a play written by Jane Austen when she was twelve years old.

James Ivory

Jane Austen in Manhattan

This very long1980 movie isn&apos;t the worst Merchant/Ivory/Jhabvala movie (that would be &quot;Jefferson in Paris&quot;) but is numbingly dull even to an admirer of many of their movies. I&apos;d assign blame mostly to Jhabvala&apos;s screenplay about two radically different troupes vying for the chance to première a (real) recently discovered play written at age twelve by Jane Austen. From what we see of it, Austen wasn&apos;t much of a playwright at age 12 (who is?!). 

Jhabvala imagines a charismatic experimentalist Svengali (Robert Powell) pitted against a socially well-connected aging actress whom he had used and abandoned earlier (Anne Baxter in her last big-screen role paying off the sins of Eve Harrington?). She wants to stage an operatic version. It defies plausibility that the experimentalist actors have operatic voices, but the audience has to simply accept that, while trying to care about any of the characters struggling to survive whimsical arts patronage. I could muster a bit of sympathy for Baxter, and more for the very handsome spurned husband played by Kurt Johnson, but couldn&apos;t care less about the &quot;star&quot; played by Sean Young (in her first screen role) or about which absurd production got supported and mounted off- Broadway.

This very long1980 movie isn't the worst Merchant/Ivory/Jhabvala movie (that would be "Jefferson in Paris") but is numbingly dull even to an admirer of many of their movies. I'd assign blame mostly to Jhabvala's screenplay about two radically different troupes vying for the chance to première a (real) recently discovered play written at age twelve by Jane Austen. From what we see of it, Austen wasn't much of a playwright at age 12 (who is?!). 

Jhabvala imagines a charismatic experimentalist Svengali (Robert Powell) pitted against a socially well-connected aging actress whom he had used and abandoned earlier (Anne Baxter in her last big-screen role paying off the sins of Eve Harrington?). She wants to stage an operatic version. It defies plausibility that the experimentalist actors have operatic voices, but the audience has to simply accept that, while trying to care about any of the characters struggling to survive whimsical arts patronage. I could muster a bit of sympathy for Baxter, and more for the very handsome spurned husband played by Kurt Johnson, but couldn't care less about the "star" played by Sean Young (in her first screen role) or about which absurd production got supported and mounted off- Broadway.

reference to sir charles grandison the play

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Jane Austen in Manhattan

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