Becoming Jane (2007)
Directed by Julian Jarrold
Though young Jane Austen's financially strapped parents expect her to marry the nephew of wealthy Lady Gresham, Jane herself knows that such a union will destroy her creativity and sense of self-worth. Instead, she becomes involved with Tom Lefroy, a charming but penniless apprentice lawyer who gives her the knowledge of the heart she needs for her future career as a novelist.
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And in the movie's sly construction, she also discovers a great deal of the plot of Pride and Prejudice, beginning with Mr. Lefroy as the original for Mr. Darcy.
Before becoming the famous author of "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma," Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway, "The Devil Wears Prada") was torn between her passion for rebellious metropolitan law student Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy, "The Last King of Scotland") and her family's preferred suitor, the wealthy Mr. Wisley (Laurence Fox, "Gosford Park").
I had never before considered her as a cricketer, for instance, and I am fairly sure that she never sought to elope, but I enjoyed both inventions—the one bucolic and triumphant, the other sodden and frustrated, and presumably meant as a precursor to Lydia’s running away with Wickham in “Pride and Prejudice.”
But the filmmakers seemed to want to cast a story better suited to the melancholy mood of "Persuasion" in the effervescent tone of "Pride and Prejudice," giving it much the same sassy makeover Fanny Price got in Patricia Rozema's adaptation of "Mansfield Park."
Smith's character, for example, is awfully similar to Lady Catherine du Bourgh in "Pride and Prejudice."
“Becoming Jane” is a film that purports to tell the true story of the early days of beloved authoress Jane Austen by focusing on the events that allegedly inspired her to write her best-known book, “Pride and Prejudice.”
Before becoming the famous author of "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma," Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway, "The Devil Wears Prada") was torn between her passion for rebellious metropolitan law student Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy, "The Last King of Scotland") and her family's preferred suitor, the wealthy Mr. Wisley (Laurence Fox, "Gosford Park").
Visually, "Becoming Jane" falls somewhere between "Emma" and "Persuasion" in terms of its faithfulness to Regency-era hygiene and lifestyle, though it edges nearer to "Clueless" when it comes to sex.
Yet, ultimately, the unique magic of Austen so beautifully caught in 1996's "Emma" is missing.
Throughout "Becoming Jane," in fact, director Julian Jarrold and screenwriters Sarah Williams and Kevin Hood draw thematic parallels with not only "Pride and Prejudice" but "Emma," "Sense and Sensibility," and "Northanger Abbey."
I wonder what the Austen acolytes troubled by Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of "Pride & Prejudice" (which I loved) will think of this weird effort to remake Austen's life -- about which we actually know very little -- into a genteel, tasteful Harlequin romance.
Some ardent Austen scholars--who believe the real Austen was much more subdued in her demeanor--may scoff at how Hathaway plays Jane much like the author's most famous heroine, Pride & Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet, but it works for the movie.
And it even, in a way, does Austen one better: it’s laden with all of the angst and heartbreak and tears we’ve come to expect from a Sense & Sensibility or a Pride & Prejudice, but because it is adhering to the spirit of Austen’s life -- she never married, never enjoyed any kind of long-term romantic entanglements that posterity is aware of -- it doesn’t indulge in a happy ending.
Because of this, it's hard not to think that we've already seen it before, most recently in the far superior adaptation of Austen's "Pride & Prejudice."