Product: Becoming Jane [Blu-ray] (2007)
Rating: 5.0
James McAvoy ... the coolest geek on the planet!
Not really been a big Anne Hathaway fan ... loved her in Brokeback Mountain, enjoyed her in The Devil Wears Prada, but never paid too much attention until I sat up and took notice with this remarkable performance as a young Jane Austen. Although Hathaway is an intelligent beauty, it is James McAvoy as Thomas LeFroy who stole this show! McAvoy is killer as the lusty London gadfly young man-about-town bouncing between boxing matches, whores and the High Court. Banished to the nether-world outerlimits of the deep English Countryside by his Court Judge Uncle-Patron-Mentor for his wild incorrigable ways, he arrives at the home of his "lesser relations" to serve out his penance ... and he arrives arrogant and bored.But deep in the sleepy hamlet of Hampshire England, Thomas LeFroy meets a radical shocking beauty who is evey bit his emotional, intellectual and physical equal ... who single handedly is rewriting human relationships between men and woman in the Western World, and revolutionizes Western Literature in her process. In the schema of history it is Thomas LeFroy who is the bit player, although in the 1800s in England he earns the higher status when promoted to Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland in 1852. Yet it is the the spurned spinster Jane Austen who earns her place in world history as one of the greatest writers of English Letters, leaving Thomas LeFroy far behind her relegated to musty literature footnotes in the modern era.In this particular movie however, it is James McAvoy as the abandoning and disappointing inspirational muse which fuels Austen's genius that moves this film from mere chick flick to a higher plane. McAvoy is utterly brilliant as the Scottish physician in the Last King of Scotland; garnered international attention in Atonement and undoubtedly will win yet more accolades in the recently released Wanted with Angelina Jolie ... he is a super geek. But oddly enough he really hits his stride with his subtle, layered under-rated performance in an English period piece.It will be a pleasure to watch this man evolve.