Becoming Jane

I thought it was a great story and very well cast. I didn't enter the theatre with expectations of learning the truth about Jane Austen's world, who was in it and what made her tick. I understood the movie was loosely based on the life of Jane Austen. The writers have simply devised a beautiful and clever story from only a small shred of evidence that there was a true love in her life. From what I gather the movie was really meant to be an fictional intervention in her life devised from what was known of her. I thought Becoming Jane was funny, beautifully shot and it made me giddy with lust over McEvoy. I loved the sexual energy and meeting of the minds between the love interests. I saw quite a few parallels between this story and Jane's novels. I really believe that Jane would absolutely adore this version, if not find it amusing how it was crafted. I do agree that to create a story about a much loved female author is risky territory, as there are devoted fans of Austen's who are looking for a representation that they personally feel fits their idea of what motivated her as a writer.

Seldom does one go to a movie with high expectations and ends up having them fulfilled, but Becoming Jane is an exception in this case. I was charmed by Anne Hathaway's turn in Brokeback Mountain and The Devil Wears Prada and couldn't really understand the outcry resulting in her being cast as Jane Austen and after having watched the movie I know for sure Anne Hathaway was the right person for the role.

Hot on the heels of 2005's Pride and Prejudice this movie offers a look into the early years of a spirited Jane Austen and her encounter with a man who could have formed the basis of one of her most famous literary characters Mr Darcy.

I have to say this movie is without a doubt one of the BEST period films I have ever seen. Not only is it visually stunning but the performances from everyone are superb.

Maggie Smith a delightful as the shrewd old Aunt.

Julie Walters excellent as the mother who would give anything to knock some sense into her daughter ( Jane Austen that is ).

Anna Maxwell Martin is also very good as the sister and confidante of Jane Austen.

The director Julian Jarrold has done a wonderful job of making an amazing movie that will appeal to all generations.

And finally the two very charming leads who are the very heart of the movie : Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy. In one word both are AWESOME. James although has little screen time then Anne makes you understand the sheer cockiness and arrogance of Tom Lefroy, from his live free attitude in life to his transformation as a man who begins to care for Jane Austen.His chemistry with Anne Hathaway is sizzling and a very important factor in maintaining the movie's momentum.

And at last to the leading lady Anne Hathaway. The lady is a marvel as Jane Austen, her determination and spark is vividly captured by Anne in what can be called a very career defining performance. Not only does one feel the pain for Jane but one does marvel at what holds her together and her writing makes her pull through in life.It is Anne Hathaway's spirited portrayal of the literary icon that forms the essence of the movie.

From her determination to write and her heart break to her feisty attitude to succeed as a writer is uniquely captures by the young actress. One can't really find the exact words to describe the actress's performance as Jane Austen , which is if simply put great.

This movie has the makings to become the period drama of the year. A fine job by the actors and entire crew of the movie for giving us an insight to what could have been very important years in the young authors life.

A delight to watch in every sense 8/10

Although I can be considered a Jane Austen addicted, it took me a long time before watching this movie, since I feared it was a melodramatic, sentimentalist and inconsistent pseudo-biography of the English novelist. Indeed, my fears were confirmed when I saw it, the movie proves much inconsistency, and has nothing to do with Austen's life and inner world, as it can be inferred from her novels, since we do not know much about her biography.

Let's say that this story between the roguish Tom Lefroy and her is pure fiction, this man in only mentioned twice in Jane's letters to her sister Cassandra, but no love story has ever been recorded. I think the director and the producer, on the wave of Jane Austen's cinematographic revival and success of recent years, aimed at making a pleasant, audience-attracting movie (and in fact they chose an Anne Hathaway, whose stunning beauty is by itself attractive, but very far from Austen's physical appearance). They made a work of juxtaposition between her literary production and her quite unknown personal life, and interpreted her life according to the plot of her novels, mainly Pride and Prejudice, but again disregarding the true nature of her inner struggles and motivations. This improbable, mainly considering Austen's secluded and never independent life, love story is romantic, seductive, but the complexity of her inner world and the world of her heroines, is totally missing.

In this way, the final product is enjoyable, the always charming English (and Irish) locations contribute greatly to an overall agreeable perception. Whenever I see or visit some English countryside, or mansion, I immediately fall in love with them, that's why I could probably never dislike such a movie completely , but it totally missed the point, and leaves much to be desired, in terms of rendering something vaguely true about the English novelist (but this was not probably the point of the production, as I said before). In the end, the movie can be viewed as a pleasant, amusing, and well acted fiction of a young, beautiful lady, fond of Jane Austen and trying to experience in life what she read in novels, wanting to become Jane but never turning into her.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that reviews of Jane Austen movies must begin with the phrase 'It is a truth universally acknowledged...'.

I know very little about Jane Austen's life, although I spotted an error in this movie anyway: her deaf-mute older brother George was NOT raised at home with her (as seen here); he was institutionalised, and the hand-signing which Anne Hathaway briefly uses here is partly anachronistic. I confess that I've very little interest in Miss Austen, nor in her novels. But I'm hugely interested in the Regency period in which she lived. As I watched 'Becoming Jane', I was pleasantly astounded by the incredible period detail throughout the film: the houses (inside and out), the books, the churchyards, the carriages and coaches, the clothing. Even the musical instruments, the music and the dances are authentic! Well done! Of course, all these late 18th-century people have 20th-century orthodontia, and their hair is too clean. And the cricket bats don't look (or sound) as if they were made of willow, as they should have been.

I know that some people will be watching this movie for the costumes, so let me assure you that there are plenty of Empire waists, coal-scuttle bonnets, top boots and Kate Greenaway frocks. Several of the ladies wear delightful gloves.

This movie follows most of the rules for costume-drama chick-flicks. We get the de rigueur scene in which fully-clothed young women surreptitiously watch naked young men. (But not the reverse, of course.) We get the de rigueur scene in which a young woman performs a traditionally male activity and (of course) she beats the men at their own game. At a cricket match, Jane Austen steps into the crease. The bowler gives her an easy one, and (of course) she knocks it for six.

I suspect that most of this movie is fiction, and there is indeed one of those 'based on facts' disclaimers in the end credits. I was annoyed that various characters in this film constantly tell Jane Austen that, as a woman, she cannot hope to be the equal of a man, nor can she expect a happy life without a husband. These may indeed have been the accepted realities of Austen's time, but I had difficulty believing that so many people (especially young men who hope to win her) would make a point of making these comments so explicitly and so often.

Also, everyone in this movie keeps telling Jane that she cannot possibly write about anything which she hasn't experienced. (So she can't write about sexual passion unless ... nudge, nudge.) However, even in Austen's day, this premise was demonstrably untrue. If I want to write a murder mystery, do I need to commit a murder?

The performances in this film are universally excellent. Any movie with Dame Maggie Smith in it, I'm there. Ian Richardson (in his last role) is superb, wringing the full value from some succulent dialogue. James Cromwell has matured into one of the finest character actors I've ever seen, progressing light-years beyond the infantile Norman Lear sitcom roles of his early career.

As Jane Austen, Anne Hathaway has the sense to attempt only a very slight English accent, but she is far too pretty for this role. The real Jane Austen was apparently not pretty, and this was a major reason for why she never married. It beggars belief that the Jane Austen seen here -- the one who looks like Anne Hathaway -- would have so much difficulty attracting suitors. However, I'm a realist: there's simply no way that any production company would spend this much money on a costume romance and then cast an unattractive actress in the lead role.

Evidence indicates that Jane Austen's sister Cassandra was the prettier of the two, and that this discrepancy strongly shaped their relationship. But, again, there's no way that the makers of this film would upstage their own star actress by casting someone more beautiful as her sister. Anna Maxwell Martin, cast here as Cassandra, is a splendid actress and fairly attractive but certainly no beauty in Hathaway's league.

At the end of the film, a title card alludes to Jane Austen's 'short life'. She actually lived to age 41: a longer lifespan than any of the Brontë sisters', and fairly normal for Regency England. In the last scenes of this film, we see Hathaway in some dodgy 'age' make-up which makes her look rather more sixtyish than fortyish. Near the end of her life, the real Jane Austen had an unidentified illness which darkened her skin: again, I have no expectations of a big-budget film doing anything to compromise the beauty of its leading actress.

This film's title 'Becoming Jane' is a subtle pun, since Hathaway's embodiment of Jane Austen is so very 'becoming'. Geddit?

The makers of 'Becoming Jane' have gone to considerable trouble to give their target audience precisely what that audience want, which is only marginally related to the facts. On that score, they have succeeded. And the art direction in this movie is astonishingly thorough, and good. I'll rate 'Becoming Jane' 8 out of 10 as an excellent FICTION film.

Today Jane Austen is recognized as one of the greatest writers in the English speaking world. Not so in 1795 when this story takes place and she's a young woman who wants to marry for love something unheard of in those days.

Jane's middle class parents have a suitable match for her. Dull Laurence Fox who has some family connections to some of the landed gentry in the Great Britain of George III. But Jane sets her sights on James McAvoy, a wild Irish lad and both the wild and the Irish are objected to in equal parts by parents James Cromwell and Julie Walters.

Anne Hathaway who does a wonderful job playing all kinds of bright and eager young women is a bright and eager Jane Austen. In an age when women tended to the sewing and weren't supposed to have opinions, she has them by the wagon load. No one, least of all her parents will tell her whom she is to love and marry.

As for McAvoy, he's a lawyer and a wild child who likes to have a bit of fun and delights in slumming at the grog houses and even getting into prize fights. Those matches were long before the Marquis of Queensbury set down any rules as you'll see.

The passion does burn bright between the two, but as we know Jane never did marry and died relatively young. Why is what you see the film for.

Hathaway and McAvoy will charm you as Hathaway goes on her life mission in Becoming Jane.