Becoming Jane

In 2007 Anne Hathaway starred in the title role of Becoming Jane, a look at British author Jane Austen's romantic entanglements as a young woman. It is a natural subject for big-screen treatment, given the recent popularity of adaptations of Austen's novels, which feature strong female characters and keenly observed comedies of manners.

Austen never married, and this film tells us why. Marriage, in those days of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, was primarily a business arrangement. Young women who were of modest means were expected to marry a man who could give them security. Austen is courted by the dull Mr. Wisley, who is the nephew of a local noblewoman. He proposes to her, but she is resolved to marry for affection. Her mother thinks she is a crazy, telling her she will surely end up in poverty.

Austen has an eye for Tom LeFroy, played by James McAvoy, a roguish lawyer who relies on his authoritarian uncle for his funds. He can not marry Austen without his uncle's blessing, and when he doesn't get it they contemplate elopement, which would scar the reputations of both of them.

Becoming Jane is in the tradition of the many costume dramas that pop up year after year, and includes a lot of references to Austen's novels, and Austen devotees could make a parlor game of recognizing them. However, her story (and the film makes a lot of suppositions not backed up by Austen's known biography) lacks the zest of her fiction. An interview with one of the producers on the supplemental material reveals that the filmmakers wanted to tell the story of Austen apart from her fiction. That's a noble intent, but it doesn't make for a very good movie. Instead, under Julian Jarrold's direction, this film tends to be solemn and too reverential. It's a museum piece more than an entertainment.

As for Hathaway, this isn't her best work. Her English accent is weak, and her beauty works against her, I think. I have no idea if Jane Austen was a looker (I rather doubt it) but Hathaway is such a luminous performer that she dominates any scene she is in, as if she arrived by time machine from the present day.