movie: Becoming Jane

I have very little to say about this movie, based on a supposed romance of Jane Austen's that she had when she was young.  While I don't know a lot about Jane Austen's personal life, my understanding is that her relationship with Tom Lefroy was friendship, not romance.

Overall, the movie is very charming, but really not a lot else.  I've always liked Anne Hathaway, and she didn't disappoint.  A lot of the f-list has been sighing over James McAvoy for a while now.  While I don't quite get the big deal about him, he was very charming in the movie.  Lefroy himself was...considerably less so.  But then, as Jane never married, you knew going in that it had to end badly for the lovers in some fashion, and he had to live and become successful himself, so I guess they couldn't make him too great. 

Pretty enjoyable with great costumes and scenery, and there's a lot of fun "guess which Austen character this is" going on, but it's not much more than an enjoyable way to spend two hours.  And there are far, far worse ways to spend two hours.

ETA:  Have been educated on the matter of Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy.  Though it doesn't seem to reduce the number of liberties the movie took on that front.

The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne

This book created a lot of buzz when it came out, for both its heroine and its voice. The books centers around two spies in the Napoleonic War. Or rather, just barely before, I believe. Annique Villiers is the daughter of a French spy, and has been working as one since childhood, but has recently come under attack by another French spy, Leblanc. Robert Grey is a (for romance novels) fairly common English nobleman spy. They get imprisoned together by Leblanc, she helps him and his injured friend escape, then he decides to kidnap her and take her back to England so the English can have the information Leblanc wanted from her. She objects. Strongly.

All the talk about the voice is spot on. The prose is far superior to that of many romance novels, and its fair share of other genre voices, too, and the dialogue crisp and engaging. In addition, the voices of the French characters-all of them, not just Annique-feel French. It’s not the typical approach of a few stereotypical phrases and mannerisms, but the characters and everything about them feel French, at all times.

And Annique? For the first half of the book, I wholeheartedly agree. Faced with three English spies, it takes all three of them just to keep a very slippery grip on her. She’s smart, clever, and physically capable. There’s a Secret revealed about 70 or so pages in that just makes it more impressive. Except that this is a romance novel. If you’ve ever read a romance novel set in this period, then you know there’s a borderline unbreakable rule that England=Right, France=Wrong. While this isn’t as blatant here as it is elsewhere, there is, right from the beginning, a subtle message that Annique is on the wrong side, and Grey on the right, thus giving an implicit approval of his actions.

Therefore, when the tables are slightly turned, Annique suddenly loses her edge, especially when the Secret is revealed. Her feelings for Grey cloud her judgement. The English spies, of course (or at least, this group) would never harm her, they just want her information (there is, at least, textual indication that this wouldn’t be true of anyone but her, for reasons that have nothing to do with Grey) while the French spies are evil. Annique remains multiple steps above the typical romance novel heroine in this plotline, but it’s very clear that the romance novel requirement that the enemy heroine be made soft for the hero is present.

Then there’s the kidnapping aspect. Now, in the context of the story, it makes perfect sense. In fact, I would have called Grey a moron if he hadn’t done it. I have no problems seeing the characters as being compatible, or even, under different circumstances, falling in love. However, for most of the book, she is his captive, and for the short period when she isn’t, it really isn’t much better. I simply have problems with the “falling in love with your kidnapper” trope as a whole. Also, it’s a romance novel, meaning that, at some point, they had to have sex. There is, very simply, nowhere to insert sex into this plot without there being a skanky element.

( spoilers )

Here’s the thing: a lot of this sounds extremely critical. However, most of the elements, including the execution, are great. Had this not been a romance novel, even with an understanding of post-book romance, or had they been on the same side, or rival spies working together, instead of enemy spies where she spends most of the book as his captive, I’d probably hail it as one of the best romance novels I’ve read in ages. But it does have those problems, which hold it back. Still, I look forward to her other books quite a bit. Even though the cover of the second looks as embarrassing as this one.