‘The Jane Austen Book Club” opens in theaters next Friday, promising a movie that highlights similarities between the romantic lives of its characters — members of a book club in contemporary Los Angeles — and characters in Jane Austen’s novels.

The film, the directorial debut of screenwriter Robin Swicord, a daughter-in-law of Elia Kazan, is based on the novel of the same name by Karen Joy Fowler.

At a luncheon at Brasserie Ruhlmann in Rockefeller Center Wednesday, Ms. Swicord and three actors in the film, Hugh Dancy, Maggie Grace, and Lynn Redgrave, all gave their thoughts on the contemporary relevance of Austen. Ms. Grace said her life indeed often resembles a Jane Austen novel. “I’d love to be Lizzie, and I’m waiting for my Darcy to turn up,” Ms. Grace said, referring to the eventual couple in “Pride and Prejudice.” But at 23, she has plenty of time, she said.

She certainly had the wardrobe of a contemporary Elizabeth Bennett down; her outfit was a knee-length black Moschino dress with a black ruffle at the neck and a bodice made of a grey cashmere sweater. But is the proud Mr. Darcy really the model suitor for her?

“He’s really sexy upon first acquaintance, but I’d like more of a mix of Darcy and Captain Wentworth,” she said, bringing the hero of “Persuasion” into the mix.

Hugh Dancy said that, although the social contract has changed since Austen’s time, “it still underlies everything we do now: the basic game is the same.” He said Austen gave a “heightened, fantastical, enriched version of it.”

Ms. Swicord’s daughter, actress Zoe Kazan, who is not in the film, finds her own experience of romance “exactly the same in terms of psychology” as Jane Austen’s characters. “Certain things have changed, mainly in the things women are permitted to do. But the kinds of mistakes we make in love are the same,” she said.

Ms. Kazan, who lives in Carroll Gardens, is preparing for two roles on Broadway.

Ms. Redgrave begged off answering, explaining that the character she plays in the film doesn’t remember anything about Jane Austen .”So my job, for researching the role, was to forget it.”

In spite of that, Ms. Redgrave told The New York Sun that she did remember which is her favorite Austen novel: “Sense and Sensibility.” Are films about book clubs made by people who like to read?

It would appear so. Ms. Grace, a self-described “voracious reader,” said she is reading a “Best American Short Stories” collection and loves the work of Alice Munro. Ms. Swicord said she is reading Allegra Goodman’s novel “Kaaterskill Falls ,” having just finished Bill Buford’s restaurant memoir “Heat.”

Mr. Dancy said he is reading the novel “Saturday” by Ian McEwan, but doesn’t think he will ever be a member of a book club himself.

“It wouldn’t suit me,” he said. “I’m too opinionated.”

agordon@nysun.com