Cinema - Becoming Jane

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a film studio looking to make a small fortune, can’t go wrong with a well-cast Jane Austen adaptation. Failing that a mini biopic of her real life. Which is what we have here.

You might recognise a couple of Pride and Prejudice characters in the following short snippet from Becoming Jane. “His fortune will not buy me,” says Anne Hathaway, playing the young Austen, about halfway through. Austen has been proposed to by the rich-but-dim Mr Wisley (Lawrence Fox), but wants to hold out for someone she fancies more, instead. “Affection is desirable,” replies her mother (Julie Walters), “but money is absolutely indispensable.”

‘Becoming Jane’ will be familiar to Jane Austen fans: it is based almost as much on the conflicts in her first successful novel as it is on events in her real life. Of course Jane does meet someone she really fancies. Of course he is handsome, and charming, and dashing, and arrogant. Unfortunately he is also extremely poor (unlike Mr Darcy) and this, in 18th century middle class England, will just not do. There lies the conflict that sets this romance in motion. Slow-motion, it has to be said: the scriptwriters don’t have the beautiful narrative balance young Jane did. Still, it’s likeable enough, and extremely well-acted by a luxury cast (Maggie Smith among them, inevitably). I just wonder why they didn’t make The Watsons instead. DL