Oh dear. The Austen purists who wailed and gnashed when Pride And Prejudice closed with a kiss will surely spontaneously combust at the sight of the toothy, incomparably American-looking Anne Hathaway playing their beloved spinster scribe. The producers, who seem to have confused "Jane Austen" with "Steve Austin" might as well have plumped for Queen Latifah. This is the first of a million anachronisms in Becoming Jane, a proto-feminist portrait of the artist as a young woman. Did potential suitors really use the language of Carry On movies? "Your horizons must be widened, Miss Austen," says James McAvoy, not quite adding 'f'nar, f'nar'.
No matter. If you can ignore the unnecessarily modern intrusions and a lead actress who, though capable, looks like she's just walked off a Maybelline commercial, then Becoming Jane is a real joy. Based on the book by Jon Spence, the film supposes that the young author's unverified flirtation with Thomas Langlois Lefroy inspired First Impressions, the 1797 draft of Pride And Prejudice.
Rather appropriately for a title suited to a superhero genesis narrative, there's a great deal of clever foreshadowing in the wry, witty screenplay. "That girl is in need of a husband," says Jane's mother (Walters), parroting a "truth universally acknowledged" in the opening moments. Lefroy (McAvoy, excellent), a brash Limerick-born 'blood of the fancy' sent to stay with provincial home counties relations, is carefully fashioned after Darcy. "The most disagreeable, insolent, arrogant, insufferable of men," rages Jane about two scenes before she softens and pounces on his person.
This irresistible romantic trajectory is greatly enhanced by succinct period details, in particular, the restrictions imposed on women. With no possible means of support beyond marrying into money, Jane, like her female contemporaries, seems doomed to loveless union. Worse, as Anne Radcliffe, the pioneering author of The Mysteries Of Udolpho explains, a wife "who has a mind" is regarded with suspicion. "Wit", we are also told, "is a treacherous talent" if bestowed on the fairer sex. No wonder that Maggie Smith's dowager, seeing Jane jotting in a notebook, asks if "anything (can) be done about it?"
If only director Julian Jarrold had, in the manner of Joe Wright's recent film of Pride And Prejudice, incorporated a bit more pig muck and grit, this would have been a masterpiece. As it stands it's classy, if not quite classic cinema. No mascara next time please.