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| Becoming Jane | |
|---|---|
| File:Becoming Jane.jpgPromotional movie poster for the film | |
| Directed by | Julian Jarrold |
| Written by | Kevin Hood Sarah Williams |
| Produced by | Graham Broadbent Robert Bernstein Douglas Rae |
| Starring | Anne Hathaway James McAvoy Julie Walters James Cromwell Maggie Smith |
| Cinematography | Eigil Bryld |
| Edited by | Emma E. Hickox |
| Music by | Adrian Johnston |
| Distributed by | Miramax Films |
| Release dates |  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) |
Becoming Jane is a 2007 film 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.
Becoming Jane was directed by Julian Jarrold with casting 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) and Tomalin (2000) have also acknowledged a relationship between Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy. Tomalin’s book was referenced in the making of Becoming Jane.
Synopsis
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). She turns down the affections of numerous men, including the nephew of Lady Gresham (Maggie Smith), a Mr. Wisley. Wisley proposes, but Jane turns him down cold. It is not until the mischievous Thomas Lefroy(James McAvoy) Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy -- the later inspiration for Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy -- shows up in town that Jane begins to take the idea of marriage seriously. Though Lefroy is a promising lawyer with a good reputation, after a bad first impression, Jane cannot stand the arrogant Londoner. The two get to know each other gradually, however, and eventually fall in love. Tom takes Jane to London to try and convince his uncle and benefactor, Judge Langlois, to let him marry Jane. The Judge considers it, but after receiving a letter informing him of Jane's poor family, he refuses, declaring that Tom will be disowned if he marries Jane. Jane insists that she and Tom may still marry, but Tom says he has his family to think about and, outraged, 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 meets Tom again in a 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, 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 Pride and Prejudice.
Years later, Jane, accompanied by her brother Henry and his wife Eliza (Jane's cousin, a contesse), 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.
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, credited the movie with a 58% 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.
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. Hathaway was also admired for her fresh take on Jane Austen. Negative reviews focused on the choice of an American to play a much loved English writer, as well as the inauthenticity of her accent. 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”. McAvoy further added that Hathaway was “the best Jane for the film”. 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." 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. 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’. Jarrold and McAvoy further praised Hathaway as the 'real Austenite' who were impressed with her more than adequate knowledge on Jane Austen.
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’. 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.
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
- Jessica Ashworth... Lucy Lefroy
- Christopher McHallem... Mr. Curtis
- Ian Richardson... Judge Langlois
- Alan Smyth... The Showman
- Sophie Vavasseur... Jane Lefroy
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’. 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.
Interestingly, the historial 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).
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). 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, scenes at Steventon Rectory were filmed in Higginsbrook House, a few miles off Trim in County Meath, Ireland. (spring 2006). 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).
DVD release
Becoming Jane on DVD was launched in the UK on 10 September 2007, a month after the premiere in the United States, and in Australia on 12 September 2007. It is set for a 12 February 2008 release in the United States.
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. "De vieni non tardar (from 'Le Nozze di Figaro')"
22. "Twenty Years Later"
23. "A Last Reading"
Awards
Becoming Jane received the Truly Moving Picture Award in 2007.
References
- Radovici, N. 1995. A Youthful Love: Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy? Merlin Books, Devon
- ^ Tomalin, C. 2000, Jane Austen: A Life, Penguin Books, London
- ^ Williams, S., 2007, Not so plain Jane , Telegraph Magazine, Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/02/17/smjane117.xml
- Rotten Tomatoes. 2007. Becoming Jane. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/becoming_jane/
- Smith, A. 2007. Becoming Jane. http://www.empireonline.com.au/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=1...
- ^ Elley, D. 2007. Becoming Jane. http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117933022.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
- Anne Hathaway Web. 2007. James McAvoy: Judge Anne Hathaway as an actor not her accent. http://www.annehathawayweb.com/pressroom/news.php?newsid=25
- Anne Hathaway Web. 2007. New Film: Passion for Love. http://www.annehathawayweb.com/pressroom/news.php?newsid=27
- Buckley, J. 2007. Becoming an expert in squeezing into corsets. http://www.thelondonpaper.com/cs/Satellite/london/film/article/1157146648859?packedargs=suffix%3DSubSectionArticle
- ^ Felce, S. 2007. Becoming Jane Q&A with Anne Hathaway and director Julian Jarrold. Phase9 Entertainment. Available: http://www.phase9.tv/moviefeatures/becomingjaneinterview1.shtml
- ^ Britfilms, 2007, Becoming James McAvoy, Julian Jarrold & Robert Bernstein , Britfilms.tv, Available: http://www.britfilms.tv/index.php?id=1856
- John Warren is a non-fictional character - he was a friend of Henry Austen, and provided Jane with a sketch portrait of LeFroy.
- ^ Lefroy, T. 1871, Memoir of Chief Justice Lefroy, Hodges, Foster & Co., Dublin.
- O'Byrne, R., 2007, How Higginsbrook became Jane's House , The Irish Times, Available: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/property/2007/0308/1173121314890.html
External links
- Becoming Jane at IMDb
- Becoming Jane is a Heartland Truly Moving Picture Award Winner
- Becoming Jane Official U.K. website
- Becoming Jane Official U.S. website
- Becoming Jane at Rotten Tomatoes
- Becoming Jane Fansite