JANE AUSTEN WRECKED MY LIFE Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Laura Piani
Stars: Camille Rutherford, Pablo Pauly, Charlie Anson, Alice Butuard, Roman Angel, Liz Crowther, Alan Fairbairn, Lola Peploe, Frederick Wiseman.
Fresh from its screenings at the recent Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, this amiable romantic comedy gets a cinematic release. This is the directorial debut feature for writer/director Laura Piani.
The novels of Jane Austen have provided plenty of inspiration for many romantic comedies over the years, most notably amongst them Bridget Jones’s Diary, and this Gallic take on the subgenre of the romantic triangle certainly shows her influence.
Agathe Robinson (Camille Rutherford, from Anatomy Of A Fall, etc) works in the famed Shakespeare And Company bookstore in Paris. She is a frustrated writer and her own rather old-fashioned views about romance and courtship have prevented her from forming any meaningful relationships. Since the death of her parents six years earlier she has lived with her sister Mona (Alice Butaud) and her six-year-old son Tom (Roman Angel). She also enjoys a platonic relationship with her colleague Felix (Pablo Pauly, from Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, etc). He encourages her ambitions to become a writer and, unbeknownst to her, sends a copy of the first couple of chapters of her romance novel to the Jane Austen Society. Her story was inspired by a vision she had of a naked man while dining at a Chinese restaurant.
She is offered a place at the Jane Austen Residency in England and is invited to spend some time there to work on her manuscript. Arriving in England she is met by Oliver (Charlie Anson, from Pride And Prejudice and Zombies, etc), the great-great-great nephew of the famous author and a professor of literature. But the pair don’t exactly hit it off, as he declares Austen to be pretentious, and she thinks he is an arrogant boor. While at the two-week writing retreat she suffers from a severe case of writer’s block. She also panics as the date of a live public reading of her work approaches.
But in typical romcom tradition Agathe and Oliver are drawn together and there is a frisson of sexual tension between them as their disdain for each other melts away amid refined meals, intelligent discussions about writers and the creative process, leisurely strolls through the nearby woods and even an old-fashioned evening of a Regency-themed costume ball. Eventually Agathe will be forced to choose between her comfortable relationship with Felix and a possible relationship with Oliver.
The breezy romcom Jane Austen Wrecked My Life has been nicely directed by Piani, who maintains a light touch throughout. Her direction is warm and sympathetic. This smart and slightly formulaic film serves up plenty of nods to Austen and the joy of books and literature itself, as well as subverting some of the usual tropes of the romcom genre. The film looks great thanks to the lush cinematography of Pierre Mazoyer, who effortlessly captures both the charm of Parisian side streets and the graceful setting of the retreat and its environment. The character of Oliver’s aged father (Alan Fairbairn), who suffers from early stages of dementia, add some touches of humour to the material.
Rutherford is charming as Agathe and imbues her character with an endearing touch of awkwardness and uncertainty that is reminiscent of Austen’s heroines. If this film had been produced in England and made twenty years ago his role could very easily have been played by Hugh Grant as Anson exudes a similar vein of charming wit. He brings the same debonair charm and self-effacing humour to his role as Oliver. Legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman contributes a brief cameo at the end of the film as the elderly gentleman who reads a poem to the audience in Agathe’s bookshop.
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life won’t change your life, but if you like your romcoms warm and smartly written this enjoyable film will put a smile on your face.
★★★
