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Plain Jane

What unbecomes a legend most
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By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
October 24th, 2007 issue

 

COURTESY PHOTO
Strife and Strenuous. Jane Austen becomes more ball belle than belletrist.
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Becoming Jane

Directed by Julian Jarrold
With Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy, Julie Walters, James Cromwell, Maggie Smith and Ian Richardson

Becoming Jane is rather unbecoming. After the success of Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, the occasional pleasures of Emma with Gwenyth Paltrow and the overheated excesses of the recent Pride and Prejudice, it was only a matter of time before the life of Jane Austen (the writer as brand) would itself be filmed. Typically, that life has been found to be too dull for proper dramatization, so instead we are served this stir-fry of Romanticism.
The creators of Becoming Jane undoubtedly congratulated themselves on their cleverness in reimagining Austen’s life as being a mere blueprint for Pride and Prejudice, so we needn’t bother. But this reductiveness rankles, as if Austen’s genius could be so simply confined to personal experience.
In this magpie’s nest of Pride and Prejudice parts, Jane is Elizabeth Bennet, naturally, while her sister Cassandra is Jane Bennet. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are obviously the Rev. and Mrs. Austen, while the Austen’s benefactress, Lady Gresham, is no one less than the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourg. And so it goes. The quiet life of the mind has been marched to woodland bowers for stolen embraces, all to the racket of persistent violins.
It is too much to hope for some semblance of truthfulness in a Hollywood film, so one must salute Becoming Jane with that highest of praise: “It could have been worse.” There are decent performances here, and the cinematography isn’t without talent. But the whole carries all the forced archness of other examples of this genre, like the middling Shakespeare in Love.
Away in the rustic quarters of Hampshire, the young Jane (Anne Hathaway) writes amusing little episodes, which she uses to entertain family and friends. It is when her brother Henry (Joe Anderson as a less conniving Mr. Wickham) brings home a friend, Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy), that Jane realizes her stories are lacking real literary quality. As when Elizabeth Bennet overhears Mr. Darcy coldly dismissing her talents, Jane eavesdrops on Lefroy’s polished condemnation of her writing skills. Where can this lead except to romance?
While Jane and Lefroy circle each other like a road company Benedict and Beatrice, her mother is trying to wed her to the nephew of Lady Gresham (Maggie Smith). The nephew, Mr. Wisely (Laurence Fox), is a rather stiff, unimaginative suitor, though he’s fallen under the spell of Jane’s wit (a quality that the script strives to keep at bay). There is also another suitor in the wings, Mr. Warren (Leo Bill), who just happens to share many features with Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Collins.
Sadly, the film’s writers had to bow to reality finally and not marry off Jane to the man of her dreams. Still, he shall serve as the kindling beneath every one of her novels to come. They will even have a chance to meet again after Jane’s hair has been fringed with some Max Factor silver spray (she died at 41), and so love will prove undying.
It’s all rubbish for college English minors, complete with a few literary hat tips. It will be Lefroy’s handing Jane a copy of Tom Jones that will cause the change in her own writing. Lefroy will also be responsible for introducing Jane to Anne Radcliffe, the maven of the gothic novel, a genre Austen perfectly burlesques in Northanger Abbey. Could there have been an Austen without Lefroy?
The performances are good to cringing. Anne Hathaway is a decent, if limited, actress, though woefully miscast here. Her voice, which can only be described as scraping a cat on a chalkboard, doesn’t help matters, though she has a go with the accent, which often leaves her playing the neighborhood rather than the lines.
There is good support from the veterans. Smith is Smith, and Julie Walters and James Cromwell are excellent as Jane’s parents. The film is actually stolen by the great Ian Richardson, in the role of Lefroy’s uncle.
As Lefroy, James McAvoy is at least given another opportunity to prove himself as one of the more interesting young actors coming up through the ranks, particularly after his very fine performance in The Last King of Scotland.
As a dodgy Cliff’s Notes to Austen’s work, Becoming Jane is sure to appeal to those who buy books for their covers.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


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