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Becoming Jane
Miramax Films


7.5

based on 34 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 20 votes
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MPAA RATING: PG for brief nudity and mild language

Starring Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy, Julie Walters, James Cromwell, Maggie Smith, and Joe Anderson

Becoming Jane is the story of the great, untold romance that inspired a young Jane Austen. Willful and spirited, Jane is not ready to be tied down to anything but her writing. That is until she meets Tom Lefroy, a charming rogue from London who spends more time drinking and socializing than on his law studies. (Miramax Films)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Sarah Williams Kevin Hood
DIRECTED BY:	Julian Jarrold
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 12, 2008 Theatrical: August 3, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	120 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	UK / USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

USA Today Claudia Puig

If one were to fuse the literary sensibility of Jane Austen with the fanciful imaginative license of "Shakespeare in Love," what would emerge would likely be the charming tale Becoming Jane.

Variety Derek Elley

An ersatz "Pride and Prejudice" in all but name, Becoming Jane is a finely tooled Brit-lit costumer that, like Anne Hathaway's flawless accent as the young Austen, lacks only that final convincing 5%.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Becoming Jane has a burnished feminine sadness, and the director, Julian Jarrold, gives it a creamy-dark visual flow.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Instead of trying to make Austen's life entertaining by pretending it was just like her work - as in the dull recent French movie "Molière" - Becoming Jane has a more astute appreciation of how Austen, or any fiction writer, works. There's a bit of stealing from life, lots of exaggeration, some wish fulfillment, mix-and-match character assembly.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Anne Hathaway's Jane is headstrong and clever, balanced and true.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The way all of this plays out is acted warmly by the principals, and Eigil Bryld's photography (of Ireland) makes England look breathtakingly green and inviting. The director, Julian Jarrold ("Kinky Boots" and the TV version of "White Teeth") is comfortable with the material, and it is comfortable with him.

Premiere Deborah Day

Hathaway's proven charms work magic here.

Film Threat Stina Chyn

Hathaway's exuberance and dramatic range are fitting for this portrayal of the celebrated literary figure.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

But if the notion that Austen was more reactive than creative in her writing is troubling, so is the idea that she needed Lefroy to make her into a great writer. "Experience is vital," he tells her. We should be glad this guy never got his paws on Emily Dickinson.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's an enjoyable period romance. Yet, ultimately, the unique magic of Austen so beautifully caught in 1996's "Emma" is missing.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

It's movie-making as match-making.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

There are enough similarities between the movie and "Pride and Prejudice" that one could be forgiven thinking this screenplay is Austen lite.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Jane Austen deserves better than to be subordinated to her own creation, the spirited Lizzy Bennet.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

We can't quite shake the feeling we've seen this all done before, and better.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Where the film goes wrong is in its attempts to cling too firmly to "Pride and Prejudice."

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

With so many good Austen adaptations out there (the Keira Knightley Pride & Prejudice, the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice, Emma Thompson and Ang Lee's splendid Sense and Sensibility), Becoming Jane seems a bit flimsy by comparison.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Movies about artists play fast and loose with truth, but this is a hoot.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

Once you admit that the Jane Austen depicted onscreen bears scant relation to any person named Jane Austen, living or dead, the film fulfills its purpose.

Newsweek David Ansen

As the proud, independent young author, Hathaway is both subdued and alluring--it's her most mature performance. The movie goes down easy, but there's a thin line here: is this an homage or a parasite?

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Becoming Jane turns into a presentable Harlequin romance, with hurdle after hurdle succeeded by an eleventh-hour turnaround.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

A bearable period chick flick with a self-congratulatory “realistic” conceit.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

So I expect the Janeites who love the author will feel themselves ill-served by the film, which appears to have even less basis in fact than "Shakespeare in Love." As for the rest of us, the question is simpler: Is it worth the eight bucks?

Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson

The solid cast and honest Austen scholarship make Becoming Jane fitfully entertaining. But it's hard for the film to escape the shadow of Austen's superior talent when it filches so much from her books.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The film tries to squeeze Austen into one of her novels, and the peg doesn't fit.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

The screenplay’s pseudo-Austen tone is so consistent that its lapses into modern romance-novel fantasy threaten to derail the film.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

This never rises above a date movie, but it's functionally literate.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Feels like one of those misguided high-school-teacher exercises in making literary history sound contemporary.

Time Richard Schickel

I'll stipulate that in Austen's time spinsterhood was a fate to be strenuously avoided. And being a woman writer was by no means an easy path either. Yet, she embraced it, and the immortal results more than justify a hard choice this film never really explores.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Its weaknesses are clumsy plotting and a less-than-satisfying ending.

Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman

Austen comes off here more as stenographer than writer. Worse, the movie has Tom Lefroy as her condescending guide.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Becoming Jane isn't just a soap opera - it's a soft-soap opera.

Austin Chronicle Toddy Burton

In fictionalizing the story of Austen, the filmmakers didn’t go far enough. Becoming Jane attempts to please the purists and the dreamers, but only results in disappointing both.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Becoming Jane would have been more honest if it had been called "No Sex in the Country."

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

It's neither very original nor very convincing. "Shakespeare in Love" did something similar by casting its writer protagonist as the hero of a story he himself might have written, but Becoming Jane lacks that movie's wit and playfulness.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 20 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Mar F. gave it a10:
love it. It's so sad to think that Jane Austen wrote in her novels the happy ending she could't have in real life.

Sarah B. gave it a4:
A very bland movie with no heart or soul. No real chemistry between the actors. You sort of wonder if some producer type thought, "hey, we can make 'Shakespeare in Love' with Jane Austen!" What he forgot to procure, however, was a convincing script and a competent director.

Chad S. gave it a6:
According to "Becoming Jane", Austen(Anne Hathaway) wrote canonical literature for the same reason that other women read disposable romantic pap, to add a little spice to their sexless prosaic lives. Since "Becoming Jane" imitates the storyline for Austen's "Sense & Sensibility", the screenwriter intimates that the celebrated novel was a barely concealed memoir. In this sense, "Becoming Jane" has a patriarchal sensibility, by its very suggestion that Austen's calling card to the ether was a pioneering example of "me"-lit. Happy endings were par for the course in Austen novels; as was her life, a happy ending indeed, if professional success could be measured by a barometer. Although "Becoming Jane" provides a seemingly objective ending about the synchronicity between career and family, the camera sees what the rhetorical screenwriter sees, that a published novel is no match indeed for a naked hand, which tips the scales in favor of family, which makes Austen's life an unqualified failure. "Becoming Jane" leads the viewer to believe that Jane became a famous writer almost by default. Intentional or not, the film aligns itself with the spirit of the times; that a barefoot and pregnant woman is better than a witty, ironical one.

Jay H. gave it a5:
5.5/10. I have to be in the mood for period romances, unfortunately I haven't been in the mood for one in years. So, I was bored to death. It was tedious, but as most films of this nature, it was also exceptionally well produced. Superb cinematography, costumes etc. I just felt I was watching it for an eternity.

Don M. gave it a10:
A literate script, great actors at their peak, lovely to look at, a plot (!) - who could ask fro more from a date at the movies???

Sorrona Q gave it an8:
A charming movie, despite it smacking you repeatedly in the face with comparisons to Pride and Prejudice.

gus gave it a6:
The English in this is very proper, the manners -for the most part - beyond reproach, and the locales heavenly bosky and wind-swept, if you are into that kind of thing. But the story is a wee bit modernized, plagued by a number of themes that were cribbed from weekday afternoon soap operas rather than the heady and trying plots of Austen. Of course, there are the requisite parallels in this parade of characters to those in Austen's stories, but they are faint, marrowless reproductions. Still, I loved it and recommend it.

Becoming Jane Miramax Films

Becoming Jane
Miramax Films