BECOMING JANE

UK, 2007, 126 minutes, Colour.
Anne Hathaway, James Mc Avoy, Julie Walters, James Cromwell, Maggie Smith, Joe Anderson, Lucy Cohu, Laurence Fox, Ian Richardson, Anna Maxwell Martin, Leo Bill, Jessica Ashworth.
Directed by Julian Jarrold.

Jane Austen continues to be ever popular. There have been new television versions of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. The Keira Knightly- Matthew Mac Fadyen Pride and Prejudice proved a winner with audiences in 2005. Emma Thompson won an Oscar for her screenplay for the 1995 Sense and Sensibility, the same year as the Colin Firth- Jennifer Ehle television version of Pride and Prejudice became one of the most avidly followed series. Emma was portrayed by Gwynneth Paltrow in 1996 and Frances O’ Connor starred in Mansfield Park in 2000. Quite a collection of films and television adaptations.

Now, the question is what about Jane Austen herself?

The answers offered in Becoming Jane are insightful rather than historically accurate.

First, an alert to the title and its play on words. The film suggests the influences on Miss Austen that led her to becoming the great author admired for the last two hundred years. However, the Regency period in which she came to adulthood and did her novel-writing was one of surface wealth, elegance and propriety. Jane fitted into this world (even as she looked at it and described it with ironic wit) and was a very becoming woman. Both these aspects are present in this lightly entertaining journey back into British literary history.

However, one needs to do a bit of googling to check how the screenplay has played with dates. At the end, an ageing Jane (though she was only 32 at the time of her death) does a public reading of Pride and Prejudice (which had been published only four years earlier; Sense and Sensibility preceded it in fact and both Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously).

But this film is something of a fantasy. What if…? And how could Jane have written so insightfully into the emotional details of the human heart (both male and female) without having some experience of love herself?

Historian Jon Spence acted as adviser to the film. He gave a kind of blessing to the speculation that the Irish Thomas Lefroy may have served as something of an inspiration to Jane. The screenplay posits that, after a short period in which she detests his manners, his manner of sleeping during her reading at her sister, Cassandra’s engagement party, his derogatory remarks and his somewhat profligate reputation, she falls in love with him. And, eventually, he with her. But, as we know, it was not to be.

Actually, the screenplay is often quite close to Pride and Prejudice. Her parents, the Reverend Austen (James Cromwell) and Mrs Austen (Julie Walters) bear a number of similarities to Mr and Mrs Bennett. Lady Gresham (a pinched-mouth Maggie Smith) is, of course, a Lady Catherine de Burgh type. The family of an impecunious family, the local balls, the church-going are all familiar Austen themes and reflect her life. The film also suggests that when she writes of Lydia and Mr Wickham eloping, she knew from first hand what it was like, though her motives at the end are highly noble.

Anne Hathaway is very pretty as Jane and she is placed in very pretty surroundings. She makes a fair fist of assertion (though she played more assertive characters in Brokeback Mountain and The Devil Wears Prada). James Mc Avoy (after Narnia, Starter for Ten) plays a character who is not entirely unlike his character in The Last King of Scotland. He starts as a would-be man-about-town indebted to his humourless, rigorous and snobbish judge uncle (Ian Richardson in one of his final roles). An unwelcome summer exile to Hampshire turns him into a devoted but weak suitor. Mc Avoy’s is quite a strong performance.

Becoming Jane takes us back two centuries for a pleasantly light and rather slight exploration of Jane Austen.

1.The popularity of Jane Austen? Her literature, her characters, her life?

2.The cinema and television tradition of adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels? English heritage? Jane Austen’s life, settings? Costumes, décor? 19th century manners?

3.The re-creation of the period, the early 19th century, Hampshire: homes, mansions, the church, the towns, dances, coaches, inns? London and the world of lawyers and courts? The clubs, boxing? The range of the musical score?

4.The title, Jane as a becoming woman? How she became Jane Austen? The plausibility of this invented plot?

5.Jane Austen as a writer, the reality of her life, in isolation, poverty? Her imagination, the novels of the 18th century, her visit to Mrs Radcliffe and discussions with her about imagination? The vocation of the author? Jane within her family, Lady Gresham, the world of the Napoleonic wars? Mr Lefroy? The crises?

6.The portrait of Jane, Anne Hathaway’s performance, appearance? Writing, her eccentricities at home, playing the piano in the morning, her relationship with her parents, her love for Cassandra? Going to church, meeting Lady Gresham and Mr Wisley, her stances on marriage, the pressures on her to marry? Cassandra and her fiancé, his going to Santa Domingo? The party, her reading? Mr Lefroy and his insults? The dance and her critique? The walk in the woods, her love for her brother George? The encounter with Mr Lefroy, discussions? The visits, the growing attraction, the possibilities? The library, his advising her to read Tom Jones? The cricket match and her expertise?

7.The Austen family, resembling the Bennetts of Pride and Prejudice, the bustling mother, the quiet father, Cassandra and her fiancé, the letters, the news of his death, her grief? The sisters walking along the beach? Cassandra never marrying? Henry, his time in London, friendship with Mr Lefroy? The meeting with the countess? In love with the countess? The possibilities of marriage?

8.Life in the Austen household, work, the gardens, the discussions about poverty, going to church, the visit of Lady Gresham?

9.Lady Gresham, the equivalent of Lady Catherine de Burgh? Her presuppositions and demands? Mr Wisley? Jane and her final confrontation with Lady Gresham? Mr Wisley and his defiance?

10.Mr Wisley, considered a booby, his opinions, his relationship with Lady Gresham, proposing to Jane, his being hurt, later walking with her, talking – and her admiration for his stances?

11.Mr Lefroy, in himself, the impoverished family, the Irish background, his brothers and sisters and supporting them? Judge Langlois? Supporting him? Carousing, the boxing – and his being distracted (and later being distracted by Lucy?), the women, late for court, the sentencing, the discussions with his uncle, sentenced to the countryside, bored, his family? His reaction to Jane’s reading, his criticism, the dance, her criticism, the cricket match and her skill, the walk in the woods, meeting her, the effect?

12.His family, the visits, the library, his advising Jane to read Tom Jones, their discussions about realism, wit, the human heart? Lucy, her age, her infatuation with Mr Lefroy, the dances? Distracting him at the boxing?

13.Going to London, Henry and the countess, the judge, the dinner, the comments on irony, the next day, the judge’s thundering, rejecting Jane? Mr Lefroy not willing to leave London?

14.The effect on Jane, Cassandra? Her accepting Mr Wisley? Lefroy’s return, George’s reaction? Love, the discussions about eloping, Cassandra and her help, the travel, the discovery that his money went to his family, her decision to go back home?

15.The return, being welcomed home, Lady Gresham’s reaction? Jane’s decision to support herself?

16.The years passing, the success, her age, Mr Lefroy and his daughter arriving, the reading? His calling his daughter Jane?

17.An interesting speculation about Jane Austen’s life? Her achievement?