| Dir. Julian Jarrold, UK/UK, 2007,
120 mins
Cast: Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy, Maggie Smith
Review by Carol Allen
The Jane Austen movie is becoming almost a genre in itself.
This one though isn't based on one of her books, but features
Austen herself, played by Hathaway. And it would appear
from this, Austen drew very much on her own life for the
material of her novels. It's fun to play spot the future
Austen character. It's no surprise however that this speculative
story about Austen, who never married, and her youthful
love affair with dashing, but impecunious, Irishman Tom
LeFroy (McEvoy) does not have the happy ending after many
tribulations and misunderstandings that the heroines of
her books enjoy.
Director Jarrold efficiently creates the Austen look that
we've become accustomed to through the various film and
television adaptations. The fashions though seem a little
ahead of their time, in that the story begins in 1795,
whereas the costumes of the young women have more the look
of the Regency period, when Jane was actually publishing
her books (1811 to 1818). As the daughter of a clergyman
living in Hampshire, I would not have expected Jane to
be at the forefront of fashion. It is however a very handsome
film with a strong cast of mainly British actors who know
just how to do this sort of thing.
James Cromwell and Julie Walters
as Jane's parents are almost dead ringers for Mr and
Mrs Bennet in "Pride
and Prejudice". Maggie Smith is the formidable local
aristocrat Lady Gresham, who in a period of history, when
marriage is a matter of money rather than love, is baffled
and insulted when Jane turns down the opportunity to marry
her decent, but dull and rich nephew Mr Wisley (a very
telling performance from Lawrence Fox in a smallish role).
The reason for this is because Jane is dazzled by trainee
lawyer LeFroy, with whom she indulges in the verbal swordplay
that many of her later fictional heroines do with their
suitors as love starts to blossom. But LeFroy has no money
of his own and his severe uncle Judge Langlois (the late
Ian Richardson), who is financing his nephew's education
and has his own plans for his future, is not going to see
him throw himself away on some country bumpkin with no
fortune.
The film is a feast of good period performances with one
exception and that is Hathaway as Jane. She has proved
herself a very competent actress in other roles, including
her well managed transition from youth to maturity in Brokeback
Mountain, but she just doesn't convince as Austen. And
it's not that you have to be English to play Austen period
style, fellow American Gwyneth Paltrow was very effective
as Emma and Australian raised Frances O'Conner was first
class as the heroine of Mansfield Park.
While Hathaway has a creditable
stab at the English accent, her whole persona – the generous mouth and dramatic
colouring, her deportment, her attitude – are American
rather than English. Were she playing the heroine of an
Edith Wharton novel or a Henry James character on a trip
to Europe, she would be fine. But where Jane, like her
heroines, needs to be ladylike but feisty and sharp as
a needle, Hathaway makes her merely bumptious and a bit
irritating. There is however one scene towards the end
of the film, when the now middle-aged Jane encounters the
ageing LeFroy with his wife and she is genuinely touching.
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