Running time: 120 minutes
Rating 6 out of 10
After the various screen versions of Jane Austen's novels over the last few years, it seems appropriate that a film should concentrate on the real world of the woman herself. Julian Jarrold (Kinky Boots) has made an engaging film which focusses on a few years in the young Austen's life and suggests that the famous spinster may have thought twice about remaining single.
Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada, Brokeback Mountain) stars as Jane, a young woman besotted by writing and living with her overbearing parents (James Cromwell and Julie Walters, doing their best impression of the Bennetts of P and P). Jane's problems are twofold: how to get any of her work published, and how to avoid marrying the rather poor choices presented to her, despite the fear and social stigma attached to being a spinster.
Enter Tom Lefroy in the guise of James McEvoy, a soldier visiting his cousin in the area and one who meets Jane at a family party. Tom is the chalk to Jane's cheese, but it doesn't take too much imagination to figure out that their initial mutual dislike will turn to inevitable romance.
Hathaway and McEvoy make an engaging couple and their story is told in a pleasant enough manner - as they defy their parents' wishes and run off to London together. But scholars of Austen will learn little here, based as it is on the flimsy evidence that such a relationship actually existed.
This is soft and gentle stuff in the mould of the recent Mrs Potter: perfectly pleasing on the eye and ear, but without much real substance to it.
Paul Hurley
Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada, Brokeback Mountain) stars as Jane, a young woman besotted by writing and living with her overbearing parents (James Cromwell and Julie Walters, doing their best impression of the Bennetts of P and P). Jane's problems are twofold: how to get any of her work published, and how to avoid marrying the rather poor choices presented to her, despite the fear and social stigma attached to being a spinster.
Enter Tom Lefroy in the guise of James McEvoy, a soldier visiting his cousin in the area and one who meets Jane at a family party. Tom is the chalk to Jane's cheese, but it doesn't take too much imagination to figure out that their initial mutual dislike will turn to inevitable romance.
Hathaway and McEvoy make an engaging couple and their story is told in a pleasant enough manner - as they defy their parents' wishes and run off to London together. But scholars of Austen will learn little here, based as it is on the flimsy evidence that such a relationship actually existed.
This is soft and gentle stuff in the mould of the recent Mrs Potter: perfectly pleasing on the eye and ear, but without much real substance to it.
Paul Hurley
