Becoming Jane

"3 out of 4 stars"

When I am bored and want to watch a movie, I usually choose from the ones that I have already watched and loved! It is kinda crazy. I have heard many of my friends telling me that they are astonished how I can do it when they can only watch a movie once and they lose interest in the movie they have watched. But what good are movies if you are not inclined to watch them over and over again?! Maybe that's not a philosophy everyone would agree upon and I am more than happy to hear arguments opposing this thought, but that's how it is for me.

I watched this movie again for the maybe fifth or sixth time today. There are a few kinds of movies that I really enjoy. One category would be the ones that make you feel how extraordinary life can be and they make you feel lively, like Amelie. The other category would be the ones that are based on true stories that are heart breaking, yet in someway heart warming as well, where this movie falls in.

This review is going to be brief because I had already watched it many times before and it had lost it's first impact (of course, there are those timeless movies that never get old to watch like my all time favorite, Forrest Gump). Anyway, I just wanted to post something to recommend this to those who have not already seen it.

The title is self-explanatory. It is the story of how the famous author, Jane Austen, became the Jane we know! And what happened in her life that prompted her into writing and what influenced her to tell the stories she's told. One of them is meeting one of the famous female authors at that time, Radcliffe, who "writes about everything her life is not...and says, if something fails, that's what imagination is for!". The title role is played by Anne Hathaway and her love interest in the movie is played by the charismatic James McAvoy (who I just realized haven't seen any recent movies from!). These two actors have a great chemistry in the movie which is vital for a storyline like this. A young woman who thinks ahead of her time and wants to be independent and become a writer (live on her pen as she says), when women back then were supposed to find a rich husband who would take care of them. Watching this movie, as I had seen many other movies that were based on her novels and had read many of her novels too, I realized that almost all the stories she's told are kind of based on her life and how life was back in those days. A family with many children who are at the age when they are supposed to get married, who live in the country, who are of small fortune, who go to balls and parties and dance, who fall in love with usually a person who is rich and after facing some trouble and falling apart, eventually find their happy endings. 

(*SPOILER ALERT*)

 

Unlike her own life where she didn't get the happy ending she wanted.

The movie could have been better. Although I enjoyed it but I think Pride & Prejudice (a movie that I can allow myself to compare to this one) was better. Maybe the details and the flow of the movie was smoother than this one. I don't know. But I don't think anyone would be disappointed or sorry to have watched this movie, and enjoy this movie overall (maybe girls more than guys, but still!).

(I read Roger Ebert's reviews after I have written my own, and in the review he's written for this movie he says that the love story shown here is almost entirely fiction, but as I think so too, he says that it is still good!)