Movie Review: Becoming Jane

Sigh! I had the opportunity last night to see an advanced screening of the new film 'Becoming Jane,' starring Anne Hathaway (interesting that she's named after Shakespeare's wife), and James McAvoy. You can see by the line at the top of the poster why I have a hard time trying to figure out just what to say about this film.

The movie purports to be the story of Jane and her lost love, Tom Lefroy. If you know anything about Jane Austen and her life, you know that there is very little evidence beyond a few mentions of him in her letters. The Jane Austen Society of North America has a link where you can read about the actual facts about Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen here.

I have no problem with the idea that Jane may have had a lost love. After all her sister Cassandra lost her fiance to yellow fever. What bothered me about the film was the idea that Jane Austen could never have created Darcy or Willoughby without having been in love herself. Although the filmmakers make it clear that Jane had already been writing for years whenever she got a chance, there are too many scenes of her being 'inspired' after spending time with Tom Lefroy. Case in point (SPOILER ALERT), she starts writing Pride & Prejudice after spending time with Tom and his uncle in London. Writing feverishly all night long, it looked for a moment like she wrote the entire book! And then there's another scene, where he introduces her to Fielding's Tom Jones. As if she'd never thought to read the book before.

One of the most interesting scenes in the movie and the one they did the least with, is the scene where Jane gets to meet Mrs. Radcliffe, and they have a stilted conversation about being a wife and a novelist. I don't know alot about Mrs. Radcliffe but I couldn't tell if she was just shy or she'd been nipping into the laundanum.

I found the only way that I could reasonably enjoy this film is if I just forgot that the film was supposed to be about Jane Austen and just thought of it as a movie about some girl named Jane who meets a guy named Tom and falls in love with him but they can't get married because they have no money. And there are some enjoyable parts of the movie and some absolutely laugh out loud parts, and not in the good way.

Tom in this film is supposed to be a prolifegate who spends his time brawling (bare knuckle boxing) and whoring, and very little time studying to be a lawyer (shades of Willoughby). He then meets Jane, and turns into Darcy with his disdain of her reading her work, and distaste for country living.

Out of the two actors, I much preferred James McAvoy as Tom. He has a certain charm to him, and his eyes are so beautifully blue. Plus he's married to Ann-Marie Duff who's older than he is and we like that. Anne Hathaway seems to spend most of her time trying to hang onto her accident and widening her big brown eyes. Thank god the film is filled with wonderful actors like Julie Walters (playing Mrs. Austen like a less annoying version of Mrs. Bennett), James Cromwell as Mr. Austen, Maggie Smith playing a variation of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and the late Ian Richardson who plays Tom's uncle. Anna Maxwell Martin was lovely as Cassandra and there's a really wonderful scene when she receives the news of her fiance's death, and both Mrs. Austen and Jane are trying to comfort her, and another scene of the two sisters lying cuddled together in bed. You can easily see from this scene where Jane might have gotten the inspiration for Elinor and Marianne's relationship in S&S.

The other flaw in the film is that most of the dialogue sounds like the screenwriter opened a copy of The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen and copied it down in the screenplay, and it just sounds unnatural because it isn't dialogue. It's as if someone tried to turn this blog into a screenplay. The screenwriter also tried to make a parallel between Jane and Tom, and Jane's cousin Eliza and her brother Henry. Eliza has money and can buy Henry a commission in the army which he wants, so you get the impression that it's almost a marriage of convenience but with a lot of sex.

There are some scenes that are just out and out cliches. If they were in a regency romance novel you would have thrown the book across the room. Case in point (SPOILER ALERT), after Jane and Tom have made the huge, and I mean huge decision to elope with all that entails, they end up stranded for a bit when the wheel of the stagecoach gets stuck in mud. As Tom is helping to move the coach, Jane holds his coat and ends up reading a letter from his mother (yes, our Jane is a big ole snoop, reading other people's mail). She comes to the conclusion that since he uses part of his allowance to feed his huge family, she has to release him, to marry another.

I almost fell out of my seat I was laughing so hard at that moment. I suppose it was supposed to be poignant, but it was just so clear that the writers had to find some way to get Jane and Tom out of this situation, and Jane being the level-headed young miss makes the ultimate sacrifice. Then to make it worse the filmmakers add an epilogue where Tom and Jane meet years later when she's a famous authoress, and she's in London with Henry and Eliza (okay, I'm still rolling on the floor during this scene). Tom's daughter Jane is of course a huge Jane Austen fan, and wants to hear Jane read, which she obligingly does, as Tom and Jane exchange longing looks. Oy!

There was some humor of the 'don't make me cringe' variety. After yet another man proposes to Jane (apparently she was quite popular with the men), she yells in frustration "Are there no other women in Hampshire?" Funniest line in the whole film. There's some other plot stuff that I won't get into but its of the "You've got to be kidding me" variety.

Also, I'm not a huge costume expert, but I had to wonder why (the film is set in 1795) Jane and Cassandra are wearing empire waisted gowns but pretty much everyone else in the film is still wearing full skirts and square bodices? I wouldn't think two women who are living off the pittance Mr. Austen made could be so au courant with their wardrobe.

It's just a very silly, silly film. The only thing that would have improved this film would have been more scenes of James McAvoy shirtless and more snogging.

This isn't the first time that someone has written a speculative romanace about Jane Austen and a lost love. Howard Fast wrote a play called The Novelist that supposes that Jane in the twilight of her life, as she was dying met a sea captain (see where I'm going with this) and was thus inspired to write Persuasion.

Would I recommend this film? It depends, if you can check your brain at the door, and refrain from yelling at the screen, everytime that something false comes up, than yes. If not, you might not want to see this film unless you have a doctor's note, because you will have a stroke. Or just go home and rent Shakespeare in Love, the film that Becoming Jane Austen aspires to be but falls far short of.

Thanks for reading,

EKM

Update: Oh and I completely forgot the scene where Mr. Austen dives under the covers to give Mrs. Austen a little morning delight. Probably because I think I went blind for a second. And can anyone tell me if they were doing sign language in the 18th century. Because there's a scene with Jane and her brother, who I thought was mentally handicapped, but seems to be deaf in this movie. I'm pretty sure Jane is doing ASL with George, long before Annie Sullivan was teaching Helen Keller.