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Becoming Jane
Metascore
55 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 34 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 17 out of 34
  3. Negative: 0 out of 34
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  1. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    88
    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.
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: Derek Elley
    80
    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%.
  3. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    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.
  4. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    75
    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.
  5. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    75
    Anne Hathaway's Jane is headstrong and clever, balanced and true.
  6. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Deborah Day
    75
    Hathaway's proven charms work magic here.
  7. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    75
    Becoming Jane has a burnished feminine sadness, and the director, Julian Jarrold, gives it a creamy-dark visual flow.
  8. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Stina Chyn
    70
    Hathaway's exuberance and dramatic range are fitting for this portrayal of the celebrated literary figure.
  9. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Marc Mohan
    67
    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.
  10. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    67
    It's an enjoyable period romance. Yet, ultimately, the unique magic of Austen so beautifully caught in 1996's "Emma" is missing.
  11. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    67
    It's movie-making as match-making.
  12. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    63
    Where the film goes wrong is in its attempts to cling too firmly to "Pride and Prejudice."
  13. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    63
    We can't quite shake the feeling we've seen this all done before, and better.
  14. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    63
    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.
  15. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    63
    Jane Austen deserves better than to be subordinated to her own creation, the spirited Lizzy Bennet.
  16. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    63
    There are enough similarities between the movie and "Pride and Prejudice" that one could be forgiven thinking this screenplay is Austen lite.
  17. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    63
    Movies about artists play fast and loose with truth, but this is a hoot.
  18. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    60
    Becoming Jane turns into a presentable Harlequin romance, with hurdle after hurdle succeeded by an eleventh-hour turnaround.
  19. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    60
    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?
  20. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Anthony Lane
    60
    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.
  21. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Tasha Robinson
    50
    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.
  22. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    50
    Its weaknesses are clumsy plotting and a less-than-satisfying ending.
  23. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    50
    Feels like one of those misguided high-school-teacher exercises in making literary history sound contemporary.
  24. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    50
    Becoming Jane isn't just a soap opera - it's a soft-soap opera.
  25. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    50
    A bearable period chick flick with a self-congratulatory "realistic" conceit.
  26. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    50
    The screenplay's pseudo-Austen tone is so consistent that its lapses into modern romance-novel fantasy threaten to derail the film.
  27. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    50
    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.
  28. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joanne Kaufman
    50
    Austen comes off here more as stenographer than writer. Worse, the movie has Tom Lefroy as her condescending guide.
  29. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    50
    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?
  30. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    50
    This never rises above a date movie, but it's functionally literate.
  31. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    50
    The film tries to squeeze Austen into one of her novels, and the peg doesn't fit.
  32. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Toddy Burton
    40
    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.
  33. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    40
    Becoming Jane would have been more honest if it had been called "No Sex in the Country."
  34. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Carina Chocano
    40
    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.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.2 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 26 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 14
  3. Negative: 1 out of 14
  1. MarF.
    10
    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.
  2. SarahB.
    4
    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.… Full Review »
  3. ChadS.
    6
    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.… Full Review »
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