Le choix de Jane

I SO wanted to absolutely love this movie. I did. Don't get me wrong -- it got a lot right. It was on Masterpiece Theater, for heaven's sake, and the script generally tried to stay closer to the few facts we have about Austen's life. It had decent direction and adept, credible Brits portraying Jane and her family. And yet, there was one huge flaw that I just couldn't ignore. Miss Austen Regrets would have us believe that Jane had several offers of marriage during her lifetime but knowingly and deliberately chose to remain single and focus on her work. This is a 20th to 21st century conceit awkwardly imposed on a 19th century situation.

The few facts we have show that Jane received only one marriage proposal during her life, and that was from someone with an irritating personality. Harris Bigg-Wither was described by Jane's niece Caroline Austen and by one of his own descendants, Reginald Bigg-Wither, as unattractive at best: he was plain, if not homely, stuttered, aggressive in conversation, and almost completely tactless. Those objectionable qualities, despite his comfortable financial position, would have put off many women, then *or* now. Had he had a more pleasing personality, Harris might have tried first for a fiancée from a more prosperous family instead of proposing to Jane.

Moreover, Jane had known Harris since childhood and probably knew full well what she'd be getting into if she decided to marry him. To endure Bigg-Wither every so often at social occasions was one thing, but to marry him and have to endure that personality day in and day out would have been quite another. The simplest explanation is that Austen initially agreed to his proposal in order to be less of a burden to and/or provide for her family, but she knew him too well not to immediately regret her decision the next morning -- and thus she reneged on her acceptance in less than a day, and remained single. She probably considered that the lesser of two evils.

The truth, then, is *not* that Jane Austen turned down acceptable proposals and made a conscious decision to put her writing first and stay independent, particularly given that she *never was* financially independent, but rather that no handsome, sweet-tempered, intelligent man, with or without means, ever asked her. She may have had such men as friends or acquaintances, but none of them ever proposed. If one had, remaining single would have been a much harder decision -- but that's moot, because such a man never did ask. Period. And that's a rude truth she had to suffer for all her adult life. It's not a truth that Miss Austen Regrets chose to address, however, and that is the film's greatest failing.

film about a legend, it is a serious work. her life is more than a picture. her work is more than portrait of a world. because the heart of pages, existence is the sacrifice. it is answer to many ordinaries questions. and beginning to a trip in essence of a society not more different by ours. basic virtue - excellent performance. the second - air of a time - mixture between honey and ash. so, if it is not accurate image about Jane Austen, it is realistic. seductive. and a real show of nuances. the regrets - only flowers of a way to understand life. a kind of lesson , idealistic, of course, but very important as subject of reflection. it is a necessary film in the middle of Jane Austen adaptations. because makes her human been more than a character writing about others characters.

As one of the many Austen fans still smarting from the vacuously boring Becoming Jane, I was nervous about this. As if sensing this apprehension, Miss Austen Regrets set off at a gallop. One and a half minutes in and we are already over the worst hurdles. We have a talented, intelligent lead - an innovative, sparkily humorous script - tactful and assured direction. Phew!

All memory of the toxically banal Ann Hathaway as the younger Jane evaporated as the lovely Olivia Williams settled into the part - so successfully that the sideswipe the writer takes at the earlier production 20 minutes in seems inappropriately vengeful.

Without hitting the exact spot, this was very, very much better.

It played on safer ground. It portrays Austen between the publication of Mansfield Park and Emma, just starting on the first draft of Persuasion and surrounds her with characters with credible lives of their own. It does an excellent job of demonstrating just how fragile was the life of even a woman successful and famous enough to be a guest of the Prince Regent. Only by marriage rather than as a result of her work can Jane support her family in their modest style of life. Questions over her brother's estate threaten the house she lives in but can never own. This insecurity is what Miss Austen really regrets.

All the minor performances are what you'd expect from top-drawer BBC period drama and Olivia Williams and Imogen Poots are excellent in the two central roles of aunt who hasn't given up flirting and the niece about to become engaged who is still learning the ropes. The whole production portrays an interesting life, full of love, frustration, struggle and uncertainty about life's choices, and does something like justice to one of the greatest authors of literature and her most intimate concerns.

So, if you've seen neither of the two recent dramas about Jane Austen's life and you're prone to kicking the cat when angered, make absolutely certain that you see this one first.

I have watched this movie because I love Jane Austen's books, and because I have seen "Becoming Jane", and because I have read a TLS review of it. But, somewhat to my surprise, it is not Austen's biographical details – true or false – that were my main attraction. The point is, the movie tells an important truth (apart from delivering a series of trite statements on men-women relationships, which are all trite because they are so true…) about life stories, or the ways people think – and talk – about their lives. They oscillate – at least Jane did, as many of us do – between regrets (in spite of the title, the movie is NOT about regrets) and the idea that one could have made a "better" decision, and the feeling that the decision was absolutely right ("I have won my freedom"), and yet another feeling, that there was no decision at all, just a coincidence, which (Freud would have said) expressed the true longings and desires, or (some other people would have said), ended up as it did ("things turn out for the best", the movie says). I would hate to think that people see that movie as "just about Jane Austen" – much as I admire her, it is about all of us, and importantly so...

The Austen Industry ensures that almost every year there is a new production of either one of her books, or of films about how us moderns are affected by her work (The Jane Austen Book Club, Lost in Austen)almost two centuries after she lived. This film turns the spotlight away from her characters to the author herself, and does it wonderfully well: we see her as sister, daughter,and aunt, a creature of flesh and blood who is not beyond the occasional infatuation in middle age. Well cast, well acted and all that one expects from a satisfying period drama. For an hour and a half I was transported from monsoonal India to nineteenth century England -- what more can one ask for!