Customer Reviews

Becoming Jane [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(117)
4 star:		(67)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

The only portrait I ever saw of Jane Austen appears on countless spines of the Modern Library edition of "Pride and Prejudice." Drawn by her sister Cassandra, Jane looks, well, like one would expect the witty Miss Austen to look: poised, civilized, reflective and intelligent. With some imagination and forgiveness with regard to the talent of the artist, she could even be conceived as pretty with her large dark eyes and ringlet fringe peeking out from the typical gentlewoman's cap of that time period. How ingenious for Hollywood to cast the sumptuous Anne Hathaway with her silky brown hair, curvaceous figure, deer-in-the-headlights eyes and perfect lips as the young burgeoning author? Let's face it---no one wants to be a plain Jane - and plain she is not--she's pretty much got it all: not only is she innocently stunning, she's independent, wants to work, exhibits impeccable manners, loves her family, acts upon noble ideals all of which along with her cricket skills results in attracting and snaring the deliciously boyish James McAvoy ( Last King of Scotland) as supposed ill-fated lover, Tom Lefroy.

As a film, all of this romanticism works wonderfully. The verdant countryside shimmers in the sunshine. The period clothing---all empire waists, beribboned hair, top hats and velvet frockcoats----sway and rustle delightfully as the couples dance and speak in clever well-mannered innuendo as expectant matchmaking parents play chaperone and contemplate lucrative alliances that will set their children up for life. The dialogue sufficiently reflects that Austenian repartee which the educated audience delights in as it makes them feel they are on an even keel with one of the greatest satirists in the English language. The notion of Austin's relationship with Lefroy as presented first in Jon Spence's biography from which the film gets its name, suggests that many of Austin's dream partnerships as presented in her novels were based on actual, personal and emotional incidents that although painful, gave her characters so much flesh and blood poignancy, we still discuss them today.

Whether or not any of this is actually true matters naught. The film seduces with the same charming intensity of McAvoy's blue-eyed stare as he quite openly undresses Hathaway in his mind. Is Lefroy the basis for Mr. Darcy? This is difficult to say, but I wouldn't mind bumping into this film's Tom Lefroy while I was taking my daily constitutional. Of course, I'd have to go back in time to become a few years younger---or perhaps not as flirty cousin Eliza de Feuillide certainly does have her way with Jane's rakish brother, Henry Austen (Joe Anderson)---oh, what money can buy!

With that in mind, leave the historical authenticity to the Austen scholars and enjoy the film for its performances and its visual delights. Secondary players congregate to form a veritable Austen menagerie of characters that for the most part plays a bit too conveniently to reflect reality. But take it all in fun ---the film leads one to believe that Austen needed little imagination to conceptualize her personalities; rather they were all there under her nose, just waiting to be captured on paper. Nevertheless, Maggie Smith as the formidable Lady Gresham never fails to elicit a chuckle as does her fictional counterpart Lady Catherine de Bourgh from "Pride and Prejudice." Julie Walters and James Cromwell as Jane's parents seem the perfect Mr. and Mrs Bennett clones while Laurence Fox, as Mr. Wisley (Mr. Collins again from "Pride and Prejudice") interjects just the right 21st century computer geek persona to the mix to act the perfect foil for the more glamorous but definitely shallower Tom Lefroy character.

Bottom line: After countless Masterpiece Theatre adaptations of all six of Jane Austen's novels as well as a herd of popular films set to popular music (Bride and Prejudice was one Bollywood version) it is not surprising that the author herself has come into scrutiny in this charming albeit fictionalized biopic. If you are not tired of yet another Darcy/Bennett rendition, you will most likely find "Becoming Jane" two hours worth of Jane Austen's world lovingly preserved. Recommended.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"

The DVD for this movie will be coming out Feb 12, 2008 and will feature deleted scenes, commentary with director Julian Jarrold, writer Kevin Hood and producer Robert Bernstein, becoming Jane Pop-Up Facts & Footnotes(ok, this is enough to make me want to buy it)and a Discovering the Real Jane Austen featurette

The actors were wonderful in this movie and it was well staged. The movie is supposed to be based on a few months of Jane's life when she was 20. H Some scenes were added to make her life more dramatic. There isn't very many facts known about Jane so any biographical movie about her will contain fiction, but I think what most people criticized about this film is it borrows too much from Pride & Prejudice.

The facts about Jane are she was a witty and lively person. We know this from her letters and her writings. She was sort of a tomboy when she was young and played baseball and cricket. She had a handsome and adventurous brother named Henry who helped publish two of her novels after her death. He did marry their cousin. Tom Lefroy was a person she knew and she did flirt with him when she was 20. Many years later he said he did love Jane but it was a "boyish love". His first daughter was named Jane. When she was 27 she was proposed to by a weathly but awkward man named Harry Bigg-Whithers, who she at first accepted but changed her mind the next day.

For people with children, there is some brief nudity (male backsides), some women that appear to be prostitutes, fist fighting and some suggestive language.

Other people have criticized this movie because they see it as another way to cash in on Jane Austen's popularity. I feel that the film does try to shed a little light on her real personality.

My new all-time favorite movie. Some people may not like it because "it's not 100% true to Jane Austen's life"... Can you say that with 100% certainty though? No. Even if you can, just enjoy the movie for what it is, a beautiful love story! James McAvoy is so convincing as Mr. LeFroy, you can't help but fall in love with him! I already have the Region 2 UK DVD (because I simply couldn't wait forever for the movie to come out on DVD in the US), but it only plays on my laptop, so I intend on buying this DVD when it's released. :) It's worth it!

"Becoming Jane" is an unexpected cinematic treasure, and one which deserves attention not only from Jane Austen fans, but from a wider audience as well. Much to my amazement, this film is remarkably true to Jane Austen's spirit, portraying her as a thoughtful, willful, almost modern, woman. I wasn't expecting a tour de force performance from Anne Hathaway, but she's absolutely perfect as Jane Austen, having successfully immersed herself in this role; perhaps her finest bit of film acting to date. James McAvoy has garnered some well-earned critical acclaim for his fine performances in "The Last King of Scotland" and "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe". His portrayal of the young Irish barrister Tom Lefroy, who befriends Jane, is also right on the mark, that's a very compelling portrayal of someone who could have been Jane's intellectual and romantic soul mate for a brief time in the late 1790s. While Hathaway's and McAvoy's performances are the best reasons to see "Becoming Jane", there's also excellent acting from the rest of the cast, most notably James Cromwell's Reverend Austen, Jane's father. If you're at all curious wondering why Jane Austen's fiction has endured, then "Becoming Jane" might offer some tantalizing cinematic answers.

Becoming Jane is the fictionalized account of Jane Austen's (a luminous Anne Hathaway) early years and supposed romance with Thomas Langlois Lefroy (James McAvoy, The Last King of Scotland (Widescreen Edition), Rory O'Shea Was Here). The screenplay was based on real events from the book Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence, who also served as historical consultant to the film.

Jane is the younger daughter of Reverend Austen, and the family is in dire financial straits. Jane's older sister Cassandra has just been engaged, and Jane's family desperately wants to find a husband for her due to the family's financial circumstances. However, Jane is headstrong and turns down numerous offers, including Mr. Wisely, the nephew of the demanding Lady Gresham (Maggie Smith). When young Irish lawyer-in-training Thomas Lefroy is sent to Hampshire from London due to his "unseeming" conduct, Thomas and Jane begin a flirtatious battle of wit even as Jane struggles to escape the attentions of Wisely. Her first impression is one of Lefroy's arrogance. Throughout this period, Jane continues to work on novels, including Pride and Prejudice (Lefroy was the inspiration for Mr. Darcy).

Jane's sister Cassandra suffers a terrible blow, and Jane herself must reassess her chances at future happiness due to the fact that a woman being able to support herself based on writing was virtually unheard-of at the time. Her mother gives her a heartbreaking lecture on marriage that displays how fragile the relationship between marrying for affection (desirable) and marrying for financial solvency (indispensable). Her brother Henry is actively courting a widowed cousin who was married to a French count executed during the French Revolution. Another brother, George, is a deaf-mute (historical records show that Jane mentioned that the two talked using sign language), although he plays a very small role in the story, and I had to research him online since there is no explanation of who he is.

My impression of the film was one of disjointedness. One fact that bothered me was the inclusion of a none-too-necessary nude scene featuring Lefroy and Henry stripping down after a cricket game and jumping into the river. Also, several of the subplots could have benefitted from trimming (like the blink-and-you'll-miss-it inclusion of George). The casting was generally quite strong, but I found that McAvoy's Irish accent (which was convincing in Inside I'm Dancing) was fairly eclipsed by a nondescript British one. Many Austenites found fault with the casting of Hathaway, and more specifically, her now you hear it, now you don't English accent. However, her luminous beauty was set off wonderfully by the period costumes, and she lives and breathes the constricting customs of Jane's era with a poised, confident grace. Yes, the accent does falter from time to time, but not enough to be a constant distraction. Maggie Smith is wonderful as the frigid interfering aunt who feels that Jane's family is below her, James Cromwell brought a weathered dignity to his role as Jane's father, and Ian Richardson (who recently passed away) is utterly captivating as the sour uncle on whom Thomas's large family depends.

Special mention goes to the cinematography, filmed on location in Ireland, the period costumes by Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh, and the lush period soundtrack (Becoming Jane) by Adrian Johnston. The DVD contains several deleted scenes, a featurette on Discovering the Real Jane Austen, and pop-up facts and footnotes. Final verdict: although the film is wonderful to look at, it is ultimately a depressing look at Jane's first romantic attraction and of her subsequent fate in life. If you're looking for a feel-good Jane Austen movie, you're better off renting Ang Lee's Sense & Sensibility (Special Edition).

Regardless of what others may lead you to believe, "Becoming Jane" is NOT a biography of Jane Austen. Rather, it is a re-imagining of what Jane Austen's life may have been and how her love life may have shaped her novels. I'd like to think of "Becoming Jane" as 50% fiction and 50% fact. And if you come to accept it as such, then you will find much to enjoy in this film.

I am a Jane Austen fanatic in many ways. I've read and re-read all her books, watched every single adaptation that is available on dvd or video, and even read many so-called 'sequels' based on her novels. Seeing "Becoming Jane" was pretty much a given, if only out of curiosity to see what the fuss was all about.

And yet despite my initial misgivings, I walked out of the movie as if on a cloud. Sure, I didn't have high expectations for the film but I found "Becoming Jane" thoroughly delightful and enjoyable. For one, the glorious score by Adrian Johnston stayed in my head that I just had to go out and buy the soundtrack. Secondly, I became totally immersed in the love story of Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy, played beautifully by Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy. And lastly, (once I got past the fact that this isn't a biography and just enjoyed it for what it is) I found it to be a wonderful period drama filled with fine acting, beautiful cinematography and an engaging story.

The story opens with Jane Austen at home in Hampshire as she attempts to write her first novel. When her brother Henry (Joe Anderson) comes home to visit, he is followed by his friend Tom Lefroy - a young lawyer who is forced by his rich uncle to visit his country relatives as punishment for his troublesome pursuits in London. It is dislike-at-first-sight for Jane and Tom, but as they get thrown together and learn more about each other, their dislike turns to friendship and then love. Conflicts arise, however, as Tom cannot afford to marry without his uncle's consent and Jane is being pressured to marry wealthy Mr. Wisley (Laurence Fox). And so Jane and Tom must make the decision whether to marry for money or to marry for love.

Anne Hathaway would not have been my first choice to play Jane. In fact, I had British actresses like Sophia Myles and Romola Garai in mind to play my favorite author. My qualms aside, I found Anne to be a creditable Jane Austen and even handled the language and accent (surprisingly) well. James McAvoy was a perfect Tom Lefroy. He infused the character with just the right blend of youthful mischief, sensitivity and charisma that makes him likeable and sympathetic. James and Anne have a chemistry that works and is totally believable. Also excellent are the supporting cast led by Maggie Smith, Julie Walters, James Cromwell, Anna Maxwell Martin (North & South), Lucy Cohu and Laurence Fox (son of actor James Fox).

The production values are also excellent. Locations, cinematography, costumes and the screenplay are all topnotch. I am pleased that the screenwriters remain faithful to the language of the time and did not feel the need to "dumb it down" to appeal to modern audiences. What we get is clever and witty interplay between the characters, and some memorable lines that would make the real Jane proud. Most importantly, watching this was like watching another one of Jane Austen's brilliant novels come to life, and what could be more fulfilling to an Austen fan than that.

In my mind, "Becoming Jane" is a perfect companion to my other Jane Austen adaptations on dvd. It is apt perhaps that this will be released towards the end of PBS Masterpiece Theater's "Complete Jane Austen" season (and just before Valentine Day - as romantic as it is), so that Jane Austen fans can purchase this dvd along with those of the new versions of "Northanger Abbey," "Persuasion," "Mansfield Park" and "Sense and Sensibility." I'm looking forward to owning this on dvd. It will make a wonderful addition to the dvd library of Regency, romance or British period drama fans and I highly recommend it.

I'll make this short and sweet: You need to see this film. But not for the reason you think. I won't go into the ethical quandries of fictionalizing a real person's life, and whether it is right to make a film about a real person and have that person do things for which there is only speculation and no hard evidence. I don't know if Jane Austen would like this. But I do know what she would like. His name is James McAvoy. More on him in a moment.

"Becoming Jane" is based on some historical detective work that suggests Jane Austen loved a man named Tom Defroy, and took her creative inspiration from their love. It can't be proven because Jane's sister Cassandra burned all of Jane's more private letters. It is thought among some that Jane must have had romance in her life to be able to so beautifully write about it, but still we can't ever really know.

The film itself is lovingly shot and well written dialogue-wise, with characters talking convincingly for the time period and spouting Austian observations that most of the time manage to be witty. There are proto-types of Austen's most famous characters, a Lady DeBourgh-type and a really irritating Lydia forerunner. Anne Hathaway plays the lady herself, and here is a sticking point: If you don't particularly like Hathaway (I don't), she won't win you over. She isn't embarassing, but she doesn't hit it out of the ball park the way Keira Knightly unexpectantly did in "Pride and Prejudice" a while back. She's okay. Everyone else does their job well. And then there is James McAvoy.

I went to this film for James. He is the most alive actor working in film today; every second he is onscreen he's is doing something, reacting to something, letting us see his thoughts. He's sexy, charming, and heartbreaking. He embodies Tom Lefroy to perfection, even when the screenplay and Hathaway don't help him out much. His scene with Hathaway in the inn is stunning: he makes us feel the panic of a man about to lose his reason for breathing. When he is onscreen the film crackles, when he is off it goes flat and we miss him (this is used to delightful effect in the ball scene) and I will buy the film for him.

The movie has narrative problems (it's almost as if scenes in the middle were cut) and occasional cheesy obviousness (lots of famous Austen lines spoken by her friends and family), but overall it's well done; a flawed movie worth seeing for a great performance. It might have happened, you never know. The theater I was at had two hundred people lined up to see it. The idea that "Pride and Prejudice" was a love letter to a man the author adored is an fascinating one. Maybe that's why the story endures.

GRADE: A-/B+

I have read Jane Austen over and over for years, and really enjoyed the "modern" movies Sense & Sensibility, Emma, and Pride and Prejudice (with Keira Knightley, although I think they treated it more like a dramatization of a Charlotte Bronte novel than Jane Austen). I was really looking forward to this movie, but when I was finished watching, I felt incredibly disappointed. Tom Lefroy was portrayed as a jerk, who seemed to have no real appreciation of Jane as a person, but just saw her as a woman to conquer. Jane was an idiot and I never could figure out what she was supposed to see in the guy. The sexual innuendos were thoroughly 2007, and stuck out like a sore thumb. I tried the movie again a second time, and couldn't get through it. Next time I'll stick to my previous rule - rent before you buy! A total waste.

Having read & loved all of Austen's novels (including her early, misspelled works such as 'Love and Freindship') and her letters I found this highly fictionalized film entertaining, but highly fictionalized.

Jane's letters to Cassandra refer to Tom Lefroy on only a couple of occasions (for more see the wikipedia article on Tom Lefroy) in an off-hand manner and without much serious regard, though she evidently found him charming. Her letters, like her novels, demonstrate that her values and relationships were proper and conventional; her satire is leveled not only at those who regarded form without substance, but at those who disregarded form: and she comes across rather as an amused (at times heartlessly so) onlooker than an impassioned lover or feminist (her novels not only assume but celebrate in their own ironical way the traditional roles of women in her society). She does not demonstrate a great deal of cosmic concern for justice, women's issues, or even, especially as a younger woman, for the suffering she meets with in her own sheltered sphere (on hearing that a woman she knew had had a fright and delivered a dead child she wrote something to the effect of "she must have caught sight of her husband"). She was a dutiful daughter, sister, aunt, etc. and there is nothing in her own autobiographical accounts of herself to suggest that the portrait presented here is anything more than another modern misreading of the past. The attempt to make Jane more accessible and sympathetic fails if we turn her into something we can meet on our own terms, rather than attempting to change or broaden our world enough to meet her on hers. Jane's governing and lucid appreciation of good manners and good morals and good sense, and the fine societal satire that ensues as she throws characters with various combinations of faults into the arena, rewards those with virtue and punishes the unvirtuous, is simply not very much in evidence in this film which attempts to understand her works and her whole psyche in a blighted love affair.

It's a detail, but even the assumption of what people in that age would find physically attractive is a modern innovation. Jane makes explicit throughout her letters that thin people (such as the lovely Anne Hathaway) were considered 'plain', not very healthy-looking, etc., whereas the beauties were plump, had wide faces, and so on. Another detail: Northanger Abbey by Jane satirizes such books as The Mysteries of Udolpho. It seems that Mrs. Radcliffe was either a consciously ironic or simply a blunderingly ignorant choice to appear in the movie as some sort of mentor: again this results from trying to understand Jane's life in terms of feminism issues which she simply doesn't seem to feel as a fundamental tension if her own works are to represent her.

So, I enjoyed the movie as a generally well done modern fiction about an unspecified person in a fictionalized past, but not as a serious approach to Miss Austen or her society (and it wasn't so compellingly well conceived that I feel any need to own the movie). Perhaps it would be impossible to produce a serious approach given the unenthusiastic reception it could only meet with in our generation of torrid, blunt 'passions' without respect for anything so fine as Austen's virtue: how many modern lovers would really find Miss Austen's moralism all that palatable: how many would even attempt to understand her old fashioned views if there were no tragic 'modern' secret like a near elopement in her past?

In actuality, the only reference we have for elopements from her own works present them as hasty, even shameful; certainly incorrect: yet even with -- perhaps even in part because of?-- such an apparently un-modern outlook she managed to produce the brilliant novels we still adore. I love Jane; which is why I can't fall head over heels for this film.

A biopic loosely based on the life of pre-fame Jane Austen. Anne Hathaway is stunning in her absolute beautiful portrayal of the famous English author. The young Jane, daughter of a clergyman in the English countryside, receives a proposal from a wealthy nephew of an aristocratic Lady Gresham. She refuses because she has fallen in love with Irish lawyer Tom Lefroy, the supposed inspiration for Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen, witty, a budding writer, and a independant woman so far ahead of her time, resists the social pressure to marry a wealthy man of means from her family. When her brother Henry brings home his friend Tom Lefroy from London the initial clash turns to chemistry. Jane finds her match in the reckless yet charming Lefroy who is eventually smitten by the willfull imaginative and modern Jane. When they decide to elope to Scotland their plans are foiled at the last minute when Jane's intelligence betrays her own heart. Overthinking what might happen, how they would live in poverty and regret, and why she just can't allow Tom to ruin his family's life ... walks out of the train station and into a life of spinsterhood. Years later, Tom Lefroy becomes the Chief Justice of Ireland and Jane Austen one of England's most famous novelists, meet after an opera performance. Tom brings his daughter, also named Jane, to meet Austen where the author reads from her own book, and finishes when she covers her empty left hand.

Though somewhat based on Jane Austen's life there is debate on the actual nature of Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen's relationship. Some say that Pride and Prejudice was a love letter to him in Ireland. Others say that it was a brief flirtation in youth. Lefroy did name his oldest daughter Jane and rrevealed to his nephew that he had a boyish love for Jane Austen whom he met while a young lawyer from London on vacation in the countryside. One thing is clear ... if Jane Austen did walk away at the train station from the love of her life perhaps she did die of a broken heart at 41, full of regret that her all too cleaver mind broke her own heart and chance at happinness.