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Unbecoming Jane Austen

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Contributed by: Andrew Kercher on 9/3/2007

Becoming Jane is an imaginary tale based on the piecemeal factual life of romantic comedy writer Jane Austen, whose popular novels Emma, Persuasion, Pride & Prejudice, and Sense & Sensibility remain classics of English literature. Jane is portrayed by rising star Anne Hathaway ( Princess Diaries), whose growing popularity, natural beauty, and talent endear her to movie-goers, especially to teenagers and the college-aged. Perhaps this is why this movie feels like it was written by women in this age category. Her character comes across as somewhat of a snob, and it may be for this reason, as much as for the social inhibitions of the times (or "boundaries of propriety," if you will) that this fictional Jane Austen remained an unwed woman, an "old maid" as, at one point in the film, her mother warns. Since relatively little is known about the real Jane Austen, this movie provides speculation that her real-life and intimate personal experiences lent her plenty of fodder for romantic novels. But this assumption is modernist, revisionist, and does a disservice to the power of Jane Austen's natural talent, wit, and imagination.

The film is advertised as a romantic comedy, but I found it more of a drama with a few comedic moments about Ms. Austen's romance with law student Tom Lefroy (portrayed by James McAvoy, who played faun Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). But it is an unhappy ending. As such, the movie is more tragicomic than romantic comedy. While Austen's fictional heroines always triumphed in finding true and lasting love with wealthy heirs whose marriages were based on affection, neither Jane nor her elder sister Cassandra (Anna Maxwell Martin, Bleak House, 2006) ever found similar nuptial bliss. Cassandra's fiancé died of yellow fever on military duty in the Caribbean, so the film is actually quite tragic, and one leaves with the feeling that it was good emotional drama, but by no means a good romantic comedy, as you might find in an Austen novel. Compared to this year's earlier bio-drama offering about an authoress, Miss Potter was far more of a romantic comedy, with a much more wholesome look at Beatrix Potter's triumph through tragedy, sustained by her fantasy animal characters that come to life through movie animagic. Beatrix' resilient nature, her parents, and her fantasy animals elicit suitable comic relief without trying to over-mix fact with fiction, as Becoming Jane tries to do. While Miss Potter did not fare well in the box office, it was, in my opinion a much better story than the present subject.

Comic relief in this film is, indeed, provided by Austen's parents, a country C of E parson (James Cromwell, Spiderman 3) and his wife (Julie Walters of the Harry Potter series), as well as by the condescending, wealthy Lady Gresham (Dame Maggie Smith) who unsuccessfully tries to match-make her heir-apparent nephew Mr. Wisley with Jane. But little more lends to comedy besides the flirtatious bickering between Lefroy and Austen, which hints that these two are definitely going to make a couple.

Our heroine spurns the advances of the "booby" Wisley for the visiting law student Lefroy (McAvoy), who is based loosely on Henry Fielding's Tom Jones-type character; he's a carousing and penniless law student, utterly dependent on his uncle, Judge Langlois (Ian Richardson), but who sincerely falls for Jane. In fact, early in the film, Lefroy is bored by sheltered Jane's writing and suggests she read Tom Jones to gain some worldly experience. So this seems to suggest what the screenwriters had in mind for the romantic conflict that should heat up the story. Since the real Austen is somewhat a mystery, it seems the writers have taken excessive liberties to elaborate on their speculations. I felt this detracted from the story and was added for dramatic flair (filler), which perhaps the writers felt was necessary since the story line tends to lag at times.

A couple of scenes back up my theory that this is written for (and/or by) the adolescent and inexperienced: Jane reading the details of an explicit portion of Fieldings' novel (with Lefroy's voice-over in the background) is a pointless speculative rabbit-trail of suggestive proportions. Then there is the scene where Jane and her future sister-in-law chase and peek at their gentlemen friends skinnydipping in the local river, which is gratuitous, at best. In reality, such behavior might happen in the 21st century, but in early 19th century England would have been scandalous and dealt with severely by "the boundaries of propriety."

Lefroy's and Austen's relationship depicts a typical dilemma of passionate love stifled by a wealthy protector, the humorless judge Langlois, who is funding the protégé who wants to win the hand of the country parson's daughter. The attempted but failed elopement is another overwrought speculation about the relationship between Tom and Jane, but at least it carries the story forward to its climax and resolution. The film concludes many years later with the aged erstwhile lover rediscovering the now wealthy, somewhat reclusive authoress and introducing his daughter, a devoted fan, to the novelist. Gone are the adolescent passions, replaced by mutual respect. About time!

Becoming Jane tries too much to force correlations between Austen's fictional characters and her real-life story, about which relatively little is of historical record. The story was developed immaturely (as if by teenage girls), and for that reason fails to make this for me a highly recommended motion picture. Roger Ebert wrote that this "is a movie every Jane Austen fan will want to see, although many will not approve of it" because it "owes a great deal more to modern romantic fantasies than to what we know about the real Jane Austen." He gave it a "B/B-" but I'd rate it a C+/C. And I usually like this genre of BBC flicks.

[This article, appearing here with the author's permission, first appeared on his blog and is copyrighted by the author.]

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