Becoming Jane (2007)

What a beautiful movie!

Really Surprised!

One of the best films i have seen

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

As ever the old adage holds true. No matter how good the cast a film will fail if the script is weak. This was. Despite a stellar cast (and one of the great Ian Richardson's last appearances). This was not so much a biopic as a drama constructed from various scenes from Austen's novels. Yes, the lady wrote from life, from her own intimate world but she observed acutely. Of course her characters are based on people she met, knew, or watched but to flagrantly take scenes from her novels and imply these were events in her life takes things just too far.And how on earth could they shoot a film about Austen entirely in Ireland? Where was Bath? Austen lived there for five years and her father is buried there!

The movie shows the life of Jane Austen before she became a writer, her relationship with Mr Lefroy and her struggles with her family. The movie deserves and A for effort. The costumes are good, the scenario's perfect, the set accurate, the supporting roles great. But those are not enough to make you over look the main problems: -The story line is confusing at some points as the love story's development is sudden and out of the blue. -The performances of the leading actors are bad. Or maybe I was destructed by the luck of accent. Jane has no English accent, or a bad one at least, and Tom, well, he supposed to be Irish, but he sounds more like a Londoner. - The make up is bad also, there soon have been made a better work especially with the on the future scene. - The story gets boring after the first arguments of the characters. So 3 out of 10, because it was in the mood of the Jane Austin films, but that just wasn't enough.

Boy did Hathaway look like Audrey Tautou - the first I've never been a fan of and the second I adore. When I saw that Hathaway was the lead I almost slammed the laptop lid down (I doing my eveningly search for a pre-bed movie). But I gave the film a shot anyway, and I'm actually glad. Probably because of her Princess Diaries stint, I found that she reminded me at times of a Disney princess, but despite my qualms at having her act the part of Austen, she managed her britishness surprisingly well. The film wasn't astounding, but for someone who enjoys Jane Austen or just needs a period (drama) fix, Becoming Jane hits a spot. It has some really intelligent quirks that helped too, that narrowed the divide between our "self-indulgent" social present and our "rigid" social past; bringing the audience in (I loved the coach scene). However, these were intermittent. I am an avid, crazy fan of Jane Austen (even as I was watching I was consumed by the desire to crack open one of her novels, but sadly they're all at my dad's while I am not. :( ) I sobbed like a freak'n child and I rarely cry at movies! This is what got me to crank the score up to seven and even deliberate an 8 (but my sanity intervened). The story is imagined, fan or not keep this in mind. But I was swept into it because of my love of J.A. If you are, and aren't going to be pedantic about the nerve of those men and women who dared to channel their creativity into the creation of something fictional, then you may enjoy this. I personally thought that the banter felt forced, not so much in execution (which could have been done better by the leads) but it seemed the writers were aiming to get too many four syllabled words into too small sentence perimeters, and thus the intended wit fell short of being powerful. Beautiful shots, pretty costumes, pretty people. A fictional ending I really connected with and that made the movie worth the watch for me (I was dragged along with the happy couple through the forest, tears streaming down my face in the knowledge that Jane never marries DRAGGED *pulls face* ).On a real note though, the premise was very... simplistic. They were short on facts to fabricate and lack creative initiative. The title "Becoming Jane", in collaboration with this premise, insinuates that Jane the writer was a result of some very sad, impossible love (and, as was mentioned in another review, the inspiration for Pride and Prejudice...)... Though mildly irritating that she has been reduced so, many films are made with the same tried and tested ingredients, not pushed to some new level. Lucky for no one, I had enough imagination to pull my way through the film and enjoy it. Very pretty and nothing excruciatingly wrong with it except the reduction of Jane to this event in her life. Nothing entirely special, as it is a reduction, and a very easy peasy one at that. It's a serious period (drama) fix for those who like costumes and peeks into the past, and Austen. 7/10 for meObjectively 5.5/10

To make a film about the life of Jane Austen, one of the most celebrated (if not the most celebrated) female authors of all time which manages to patronise women is quite some achievement and Kevin Hood and Sarah Williams should be justly proud. This seemingly impossible feat is brought off by pretty much ignoring her many literary masterpieces and focusing instead, with barefaced inaccuracy, on a failed early romantic liaison. I'm not going to criticise the actors as they all too often get the blame for badly drawn characters but the notion that Anne Hathaway's Jane could have written a book like Pride and Prejudice is, frankly, hilarious. I can only assume that the makers of this film have mistaken all that swooning over Colin Firth's wet shirt scene and Greg Wise's heroics on horseback as evidence that fans of Jane Austen are nothing more than lovers of ditsy romances.Yes, Austen's stories are, essentially love stories but take the romance out and it's still great literature. It is her timeless wit, intellect and brutal exposure of human nature that has made Austen one of the most widely read and appreciated authors in history. There is a very great, and not at all delicious, irony that the world Jane Austen describes is one in which a woman is judged merely on her ability to make a good match and that, despite all her critical acclaim as a writer, this is what film makers centuries later should choose to reduce her own life to. I watched this film, against my better judgement, on a flight between Quito and Miami. The immigration queues couldn't come quick enough.