Becoming Jane [Blu-ray]

I actually did like this movie and found it quite enjoyable. Anne Hathaway was lovely and did a really good job of this fantasized version of Jane Austen. James McAvoy was quite magical as Tom Lefroy. The supporting cast - all perfect, and it was interesting to imagine along with the scriptwriter that THIS encounter prompted her to invent Sense & Sensibility or THAT chance meeting inspired Pride & Prejudice, and so on. However, let's not kid ourselves that this tale bears much similarity to the REAL life of Jane Austen.

While Tom Lefroy WAS a real person, and he and Jane DID meet (on possibly three separate occasions - at very public country dances) - and they may indeed have "fancied" each other ... that's probably as far as it went. He would not have married her because she had no fortune - and neither did he. It was imperative that he marry for money - if for no other reason than that he WAS the eldest son and had 11 or 12 brothers and sisters who depended upon him. We might not like that idea today, but it was normal then.

As lovely an idea as eloping with the man of your dreams may be..... it did not, could not have happened. Jane could never have gone home again and certainly would never have been accepted into polite society after gallivanting off ALONE with a member of the opposite sex. Two hundred years ago, values and customs were far more rigid than they are today. (Just over ONE hundred years ago, my paternal grandparents eloped - she was from a very upper class family; he was an apprentice to the local blacksmith. They moved from a small Gloucestershire village to London, where he actually did quite well and took very good care of her - but her family cut her off completely and she had no contact with them ever again.) Had Jane eloped, because her family could never have accepted her into their midst again, she probably would not have tried to return home. What would have become of her novels then?

Having said that, the movie's story is very sweet and I certainly found it well worth watching. I really do love a good romance - but that's all it was!

Whenever a new Jane Austen tale is filmed, I'm there. Ang Lee's Sense & Sensibility is my favourite - Joe Wright's Pride & Prejuduce and Patricia Rozema's Mansfield Park also. The most intriguing thing for me about setting out to see this film for the first time was that it wasn't an Austen tale, it was a tale about Austen. The story is inspired by a true-life flirtation between budding writer Jane (Anne Hathaway) and young law student Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy) and the effect it has on Jane's (and Tom's) life and writing. The film treats the relationship, perhaps, more seriously than the real relationship between Jane and Tom (as documented in Jon Spence's "Becoming Jane Austen" which pieces together Jane's life through historic correspondence and accounts by her ancestors) but since her sister, Cassandra, destroyed stacks of letters written by Jane, the depth of her feelings towards Tom will never fully be known.

This film does not have the lush cinematography of Ang Lee's Sense & Sensibility but it has a slight rawness that lends to the atmosphere of the time and the poverty that the Austen family were challenged with. The performances by James Cromwell, Julie Walters, Maggie Smith and Ian Richardson give this film a solid foundation. Anne Hathaway's performance pleasantly surprised me. She has been critized for her English accent but I think she portrayed a very spirited, smart, and passionate Jane. You can clearly tell Anne's heart was in this role. James McAvoy is superb as Tom Lefroy. He's charming, impish, thoughtful, funny and, well, very easy on the eyes. He's one of my favourite actors and definately one to watch for in the future.

I highly recommend this film. It's charming, romantic, funny, and heartbreaking. I gave it four stars only because I would give S&S five stars.

but not again and again - but it is because there is no happy ending. I just hope they were true as much as is possible to know
about Jane Austin.