Becoming Jane

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Becoming Jane
Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by	Julian Jarrold
Produced by	Graham Broadbent Robert Bernstein Douglas Rae
Written by	Kevin Hood Sarah Williams
Starring	Anne Hathaway James McAvoy Julie Walters James Cromwell Maggie Smith
Music by	Adrian Johnston
Cinematography	Eigil Bryld
Editing by	Emma E. Hickox
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release date(s)	March 9 March 16 March 29 August 3
Running time	112 min.(1 hr. and 52 min.)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	€12,500,000 (estimate)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Becoming Jane is a 2007 historical film directed by Julian Jarrold. It is inspired by the early life of author Jane Austen (portrayed by Anne Hathaway), and her posited relationship with Thomas Langlois Lefroy (played by BAFTA-winning Scottish actor James McAvoy). Julie Walters, James Cromwell and Maggie Smith also appear in this picture. The film was produced in cooperation with several companies, including BBC Films and the Irish Film Board. The film performed well at the box office, earning $37 million worldwide according to Box Office Mojo.

The casting was by Gail Stevens and Gillian Reynolds, costumes by Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh, and original soundtrack composed by Adrian Johnston. Although the film assumes an otherwise unproven relationship between Austen and Lefroy, the original screenplay was inspired by real events, which were chronicled in the book Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence, who was the historical consultant on the film. In fact, prior to Spence’s book, biographers Radovici (1995)^[1] and Tomalin (2000)^[2] have also acknowledged a relationship between Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy. Tomalin’s book was referenced in the making of Becoming Jane.^[3]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Critical reception 3 Cast 4 Location 5 DVD release 6 Soundtrack 7 Awards 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Plot

Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) is the younger daughter of Reverend Austen and his wife (Julie Walters) and has yet to find a suitable husband. She wishes to be a writer -- to the disdain of her mother and pride of her father (James Cromwell). Though Thomas Lefroy (James McAvoy) is a promising lawyer with a bad reputation, which he describes as "typical" for peers of that era and after a bad first impression, Jane cannot stand the arrogant Londoner. She turns down the affections of numerous men, including the nephew of Lady Gresham (Maggie Smith), a Mr. Wisley (Laurence Fox). Wisley proposes, but Jane turns him down cold. The mischievous Tom -- the later inspiration for Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy -- continues his advances and Jane begins to take the idea of marriage seriously. The two get to know each other gradually, however, and eventually fall in love. Tom, Jane, Henry (Jane's Brother, played by Joe Anderson) and Jane's rich widowed cousin, Eliza the Comtessa, conspire to receive an invitation from Tom's Uncle, the Lord Chief Judge Langlois of London, for the rich "Madame de La Comtessa, and her friends to take a short break in their journey to see Jane's brother, Edward. This would allow Tom's uncle and benefactor, Judge Langlois, to get to know Jane and give a blessing for their marriage. However, the Judge receives a letter informing him of Jane's poor family, he refuses to give Tom his blessing, declaring that he wished Tom to be the whoremonger he had been than allow him to live in poverty because of a bad marriage. Jane insists that she and Tom may still marry, but Tom says he has his family to think about and, disillusioned, she leaves London.

On her return home, and after finding out that Tom has come back to town with a new fiancee, Jane informs Mr. Wisley that she will marry him. Meanwhile, Jane's sister Cassandra has learned that her fiancee, Robert Fowle, has died of yellow fever. The girls are both devastated. Jane happens upon Tom again in the Southern wood, where he asks her to run away with him. She agrees, but halfway there, she learns that Tom's parents, along with his many brothers and sisters (Tom will not reveal how many), depend on the allowance he receives from his uncle to survive. Despite protestations from Tom, Jane ends their affair for his family's sake, returns home to her own family, and begins writing anew on a novel entitled "First Impressions", later renamed "Pride and Prejudice".

Years later, Jane, accompanied by her brother Henry and his wife Eliza (Jane's cousin, a countess), encounters Thomas Lefroy again at a social function. He is with his eldest daughter, also named Jane, who turns out to be a fan of Jane Austen's writing. The film ends with Jane giving a most rare public reading. This scene most probably took place during the time from December 1800 to 1805 when Jane, Cassandra and their parents lived in Bath, a very famous British "Spa" town until the Rev. Austen died.

It is interesting to note that Jane never was able "to live by her pen." She was published anonymously until her death in 1817 of Addison's disease. She did not become well published until 1833. Since that time, her books have been in continuous print.

[edit] Critical reception

By April 2007, Becoming Jane had screened in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and Sweden; reviews of which mostly originated from the first three countries. Popular movie review site, Rotten Tomatoes, rates the movie as rotten with a 57% approval rating. Supporters of the movie praised the original screenplay, which was derived from biographies and letters of Jane Austen, the late 18th century costumes, the original soundtrack (orchestrated by Adrian Johnston) and solid performances by a leading cast.^[4]

Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy were lauded for the chemistry between their characters, lending authenticity to the love story between Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy.^[5][6] Hathaway was also admired for her fresh take on Jane Austen.^[6] Negative reviews focused on the choice of an American to play a much loved English writer, as well as the inauthenticity of her accent.^{[citation needed]} James McAvoy defended the decision of casting Hathaway by stating that a movie creator should “find the right actor…and she (Hathaway) is undoubtedly brilliant”.^[7] McAvoy further added that Hathaway was “the best Jane for the film”.^[8] Actress Anna Maxwell Martin (playing Cassandra Austen) stated that when the cameras stopped rolling, Hathaway’s accent was sometimes “a bit of a hybrid but I don’t think she ever sank completely."^[9] Anne Hathaway herself admitted the persistent tendency to “sound too much like myself and not at all like Jane”, blaming cold weather in Ireland, which meant she had to do voice retakes for several scenes.^[3] Nonetheless, director Julian Jarrold praised Hathaway for her total transformation in becoming Jane Austen. In a wrap up party after the filming, Jarrold confessed that the actress had been a different person, ‘not just her accent but also the whole character, the way of holding yourself and speaking was so completely different’.^[10] Jarrold and McAvoy further praised Hathaway as the 'real Austenite' who were impressed with her more than adequate knowledge on Jane Austen.^[11]

Some reviewers have questioned the historical accuracy of the movie; for example, one promotional poster shows Jane holding a fountain pen. The creators of Becoming Jane have clearly stated, however, that it is not a biopic in spite of using many historical facts from Jane Austen’s life. The co-producer of the film, Graham Broadbent, explained that they ‘joined the dots in our own Austenesque landscape’.^[3] Criticisms of the film's historical accuracy have led to increased public interest in the facts of Jane Austen's life, reflected in her novels, letters and in biographies. Costumes worn by the characters from Becoming Jane have been exhibited in Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, Hampshire (where she lived from 1809 until 1817, a few months prior to her death in Winchester) to accommodate the curiosity of fans.

[edit] Cast

• Anne Hathaway... Jane Austen
• James McAvoy... Thomas Lefroy
• Julie Walters... Mrs. Austen
• James Cromwell... Mr. Austen
• Maggie Smith... Lady Gresham
• Joe Anderson... Henry Austen
• Lucy Cohu... Eliza de Feuillide
• Laurence Fox... Mr. Wisley
• Anna Maxwell Martin... Cassandra Austen
• Leo Bill... John Warren^[12]
• Jessica Ashworth... Lucy Lefroy
• Christopher McHallem... Mr. Curtis
• Ian Richardson... Judge Langlois
• Alan Smyth... The Showman
• Sophie Vavasseur... Jane Lefroy

[edit] Location

Becoming Jane was shot in Dublin and rural Ireland (including County Wicklow), instead of Hampshire in England, the birthplace of Jane Austen. The movie received funding from the Irish Film Board, but as Julian Jarrold said, the decision to film in Ireland was due to the fact that ‘Hampshire now is groomed and manicured and what we were able to find in Ireland was a sense of countryside that felt more unchanged. That was one of the things that I really wanted to get...a sense of the landscape in which Jane Austen grew up. Ireland also has a great variety of Georgian houses and older houses as well. I think it gave us quite a different and interesting look for the film’.^[10] James McAvoy supported the decision, observing that the houses in Becoming Jane were 'left to recede a bit more, a bit more gritty that you haven't seen in Austen films' and thus portrayed a 'sense of reality and a sense of a poorer world' in the Regency Period.^[11]

Interestingly, the historical Tom Lefroy spent summers in County Wicklow. Tom referred to his fondness for the landscape as 'Wicklow trance’. His son Thomas Lefroy explained that this was a ‘household word in our family circle for the great admiration he had for the scenery of the County Wicklow where for many years he spent his summer vacations’ (Memoir of Chief Justice Lefroy, 1871, p. 37).^[13]

It is also intriguing to note that Chief Justice Tom Lefroy spent the three last years of his life in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland, in a villa of Newcourt he rented in 1866, and died there on 4 May 1869 (Memoir of Chief Justice Lefroy, 1871, p. 382).^[13] Bray was also one of the locations of Becoming Jane filming in March-April 2006. There is no evidence that the filmmakers were aware of the fact that Bray was the place where Tom Lefroy took his last breath, nor that Tom Lefroy was very fond of County Wicklow.

As the original home of Jane Austen was demolished in 1824,^[2] scenes at Steventon Rectory were filmed in Higginsbrook House, a few miles off Trim in County Meath, Ireland (spring 2006).^[14] The house was built circa the first half of the 18th century and now belongs to Christopher Gray and his family. Apparently, Higginsbrook performed well, for later in autumn 2006, it appeared again as the house of the Morlands in Northanger Abbey (ITV 2007).

[edit] DVD release

Becoming Jane on DVD was released in the United Kingdom on September 10, 2007, a month after the premiere in the United States, and in Australia on September 12, 2007. It was released on February 12, 2008 in the United States.

[edit] Soundtrack

The Original Soundtrack is currently available and features the numerous scores and instrumental music featured in the film, including the theme of the "Bastingstoke Assembly" to which Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy dance together for the first time.

A track listing for the album is as follows:

1. "First Impressions"
2. "Hampshire"
3. "Bond Street Airs"
4. "Bastingstoke Assembly"
5. "A Game of Cricket"
6. "Selbourne Wood"
7. "Lady Gresham"
8. "Advice From a Young Lady"
9. "Laverton Fair"
10. "To the Ball"
11. "Rose Garden"
12. "Mrs. Radcliffe"
13. "Goodbye Mr. Lefroy"
14. "Distant Lives"
15. "The Messenger"
16. "An Adoring Heart"
17. "Runaways"
18. "A Letter from Limerick"
19. "The Loss of Yours"
20. "To Be Apart"
21. "Deh vieni, non tardar" (from Le Nozze di Figaro)
22. "Twenty Years Later"
23. "A Last Reading"

[edit] Awards

• Won the 2007 People's Choice Award for "Favorite Independent Movie".^[15]
• Nominated for 2008 Ivor Novello Award for Best Original Film Score
• recieved funding from The UK Film Council Lottery.
• won the Heartland Truly Moving Picture Award.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Becoming Jane at the Internet Movie Database
• Becoming Jane Official U.K. website
• Becoming Jane Official U.S. website
• Becoming Jane at Rotten Tomatoes