Product: Becoming Jane [Blu-ray] (2007)
Rating: 5.0
How Jane Austen's witt broke her own heart
A biopic loosely based on the life of pre-fame Jane Austen. Anne Hathaway is stunning in her absolute beautiful portrayal of the famous English author. The young Jane, daughter of a clergyman in the English countryside, receives a proposal from a wealthy nephew of an aristocratic Lady Gresham. She refuses because she has fallen in love with Irish lawyer Tom Lefroy, the supposed inspiration for Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen, witty, a budding writer, and a independant woman so far ahead of her time, resists the social pressure to marry a wealthy man of means from her family. When her brother Henry brings home his friend Tom Lefroy from London the initial clash turns to chemistry. Jane finds her match in the reckless yet charming Lefroy who is eventually smitten by the willfull imaginative and modern Jane. When they decide to elope to Scotland their plans are foiled at the last minute when Jane's intelligence betrays her own heart. Overthinking what might happen, how they would live in poverty and regret, and why she just can't allow Tom to ruin his family's life ... walks out of the train station and into a life of spinsterhood. Years later, Tom Lefroy becomes the Chief Justice of Ireland and Jane Austen one of England's most famous novelists, meet after an opera performance. Tom brings his daughter, also named Jane, to meet Austen where the author reads from her own book, and finishes when she covers her empty left hand.Though somewhat based on Jane Austen's life there is debate on the actual nature of Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen's relationship. Some say that Pride and Prejudice was a love letter to him in Ireland. Others say that it was a brief flirtation in youth. Lefroy did name his oldest daughter Jane and rrevealed to his nephew that he had a boyish love for Jane Austen whom he met while a young lawyer from London on vacation in the countryside. One thing is clear ... if Jane Austen did walk away at the train station from the love of her life perhaps she did die of a broken heart at 41, full of regret that her all too cleaver mind broke her own heart and chance at happinness.