movie: Becoming Jane

[meganbmoore]

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.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Ah. I just remembered a lot of talk about how her relationship with Lefroy wasn't like that when the movie came out. In the movie, the relationship was less innocent, and did cross the bounds of propiety (though not as far as our modern minds immediately leap when that's said.) It sounds like, historically, it was never allowed to progress beyond puppy love.

The movie makes it her choice to not be with him (for very good reasons, though I suspect the historical Lefroy wouldn't have allowed them to be in the position they were in) and she effectively says "screw reality...I'm going to write stories where everyone gets exactly what they want, even if they suffer a bit first."

For my part, I actually found the small bits of her relationship with Woosley(the other man) more interesting, and, of the 2 men, sympathized more with him.

[laura-holt-pi.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I haven't seen it. I get very protective of my favourite female author and no writer was ever more enthusiastically engaged in reality than her. I have a book of her letters and her letters to her niece are proof that she loved her life as it was.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I'll be completely honest and say that if I hadn't deliberately disengaged my brain before watching, I'd probably be nitpicking all over the place.

Disengaged brain: PRETTY DRESSES!
Engaged brain: WAIT! That doesn't belong in the 1790s! It belongs...somewhere within 20 or so years of it, but...*too lazy to look to see exactly when P&P was written*