Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on October 2009

©2006 Becoming Jane Films Limited, Scion Films Premier (Third). Limited Partnership and UK Film Council All Rights Reserved

Liberally fictionalized account of how young Jane Austen came to be the author of six of the most widely read novels in English. Casual fans of the writer’s work will delight in spotting formative personalities and experiences, but devotees may be put off by the sheer imaginative license taken. Austen’s headstrong heroines all had happier-ever-afters. She spurned her one serious marriage proposal, flirted briefly with a young lawyer, advocated a woman’s right to write, and died a spinster at 41. The film romanticizes all this, but the fact is, her life was not all that interesting. At best, this is a functionally literate, fitfully entertaining diversion; at worst, it’s a second-rate Austen clone visibly straining to turn the author’s meager life experiences into another Pride and Prejudice. It goes on. Jane is played, well enough, by Anne Hathaway, and while I applaud the actress’ attempts to expunge her Disney image (Rachel Getting Married), she’s just too good-looking to portray the dowdy author. And the casting director must have spent entire minutes deciding on James McAvoy, Julie Walters, James Cromwell and Maggie Smith to support her. A watchable disappointment.