Product: Becoming Jane [Blu-ray] (2007)
Rating: 5.0
More "Jane Austen" for Her Fans Who Wish There Could be More
I think that most Jane Austen fans wish that Jane had lived longer and that she had been able to write more. While Jane did not write a biography herself, BECOMING JANE is the next best thing for me. This beautifully filmed and superbly acted movie tells the story (yes, it is a story--although with basis in scanty historical facts) of the romance between Jane and Tom Lefroy. In one of the "Special Features" included on the DVD, the screenwriter says that he tried to pull parts from Austen's various works to put into the script to flesh out the known facts in such a way that the story "feels like" Jane Austen. (He challenges the true Austen fans to see just how many of these details from Austen's works they can find.) For me, at least, watching this film gave me the sense that I was getting to read one more of Austen's stories--her most personal one about her own true love--and to enter, once again, that wonderful world of Jane Austen. As far as the cast goes, it is superb. Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy are perfect as Jane and Tom. The chemistry is definitely there. While it is not truly a Jane Austen work, I still found "Becoming Jane" to be a wonderful, beautifully made film that has let me enter, just one more time, that treasured world of Jane Austen.