Boring and annoying are two adjectives that spring to mind regarding this film. The only aspect that salvaged it from being completely unbearable was the presence of Anne Baxter.Until she appeared on screen it all just seemed to be a series of disjointed scenes bound only by a shared pretentiousness. And then, boom, there she was and suddenly the electromagnetic field changed.It was interesting to observe how powerful the presence of a single person can be. Because, in this case, Baxter brought a coherence to the film. With her appearance, the different elements seemed to fall into place. At least to a degree.I tried to figure out what it was about her that seemed to make this happen. Was it "star" quality? Was it a gravitas that came from her years of experience? Or did she, as opposed to the other actors here, perhaps resist the "direction" that was being given and merely follow her own course as far as interpreting her character. I don't know. I couldn't figure it out.The only other actor who created a real character as opposed to a caricature was Kurt Johnson who played Victor. And Sean Young was quite good.The others were giant clusters of affectations. Robert Powell who played Pierre was especially annoying. Granted his character was supposed to be so. But he was not interesting annoying. Just annoying annoying.

I must admit, I couldn't make out what this film was trying to be ... but I did like it.Was it about Jane Austen's bit of juvenilia, Sir Charles Grandison, and theatrical productions of it? Was it about Ariadne and her struggles with herself and her need to become a star? Was it about Katya and her other life as a smoky bar dive singer? Was it about Liliana and Pierre and the feelings they still had for themselves, years after they had been bedfellows? Was it about theatre technique and the insecurities of those who live by greasepaint alone? It is a slow, ponderous film, with some memorable sequences amongst the dull interludes; I like to call the good sequences the bits of gold in the sand! Jane Austen's play, from what we see here, is hopeless, and I am sure those who paid big money at auction for it were kicking themselves afterwards - but as a starting point for a movie, Merchant Ivory have done a good job with their fresh new setting.Robert Powell, fresh from Jesus of Nazareth, is good as Pierre but isn't quite charismatic enough to carry off his Svengali-like role. Anne Baxter is excellent in her final film role as the determined and devious Liliana, her appearance in the film is one of quiet dignity and of true star quality, and she can be funny too. Baxter's daughter Katrina Hodiak impresses as moody and mixed-up Katya and gets to perform a few lovely songs (one wonders why she didn't do more movies ... I was also struck by her strong resemblance to her father, 40s star John Hodiak). And Sean Young, in one of her earliest roles as Ariadne, is OK if you get past the big hair, but you would never have believed from this that she would become a star in films to come.'Jane Austen in Manhattan' takes a fresh spin on an old author but does it by making a dark, complicated (and often yawn-inducing) movie.However ... for those nuggets of gold, and they are there ... I would happily watch it again.

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.

It seems that a manuscript of Jane Austen's play "Sir Charles Grandison" was in fact discovered fairly recently. I have not read it, but I cannot believe that Ivory-Merchant-Jhabvala could really have understood it. Austen's young writings are brilliantly comic, but if there is anything funny in `Jane Austen in Manhattan' I missed it.The film could have been a good satirical comedy. Maybe parts of it are funny to the Manhattan in crowd of the off-off-Broadway theatre, but you will have to know the participants in that activity a lot better than I do to enjoy this movie.The central figure seems to be that played by Sean Young. James Ivory does not bring out any aspect of competence or charm this young woman may have, thus making the contest for her participation in the two competing efforts to produce a play pointless.