"The Jane Austen Book Club" is a sprawling story of heartbreak and friendship that successfully marries frothy romantic comedy, painful drama and a smart knowledge of the writer’s literary classics.

The film opens at a funeral, but quickly establishes its sly tone by revealing that the dear departed is a dog, one of the loyal, controllable pack that breeder Jocelyn (Maria Bello) prefers to unreliable, headstrong men.

When several of her female buddies form a reading circle with a course in Austen to soothe their way through various crises and upheavals, the stage is set for a series of life lessons paralleling the novels’ plots.

Robin Swicord directs this film and has adapted Karen Joy Fowler’s bestseller for the screen. She delivers a deliciously light and entertaining drama about people who love to read and aren’t ashamed of talking about their emotions. The members of the Jane Austen Book Club decide to read her six novels over a six-month period with each member leading one of the discussions. They find that the nineteenth century English author has plenty of insights that can be applied to contemporary friendships, marriages, sexual politics, money and class issues, social manners, self-control, second chances, and finding one’s own place in the world.

One gets to the end of the film believing in the redemptive power of love, as well as the excitement of reading a good book. It’s the rare film that can convey that. Viewers may be tempted to go from the theater to their local library or bookstore.