What's the least productive way to waste your time if you like period movies? Watching a Jane Austen movie. What's the worst thing you can do next to going through an excruciating series of chores? Watching Becoming Jane. This movie reflects exactly why Austen became the overrated author she is, the reason why all of her characters seldom have any difficulty leading their prosperous lives. Being in financial difficulty, her family endeavors to convince her to marry a wealthy gentleman called Mr. Wisley, although she falls in love with Tom, a humble, yet honest lawyer with a bad reputation. Jane is stuck between choosing a perfect and rich life, and true love, the movie keeps swinging between the two relationships, but Jane follows her heart and grows fond of the poor lawyer who could be a perfect match for her, but at the end, she abruptly chooses the rich guy she NEVER gave a damn about, save for her financial troubles, in poor words, she ruins the message of the entire movie, and her life, by turning it from "follow your heart" to "who cares about it, just get married with money". Quite an unforgettable life lesson, right? I'm pointing my finger to the abundant English teachers who praise Austen as an author, and a human being. Austen taught girls that life should be weighed solely on money before Disney even taught them that the only for a girl way to change a man's life is by making use of their only available asset, their sexuality. Austen doesn't go against the flow, she pretends to, but at the end of the day embraces the social norms without providing any effort to display any agency whatsoever. She's clearly a mockery compared to female authors who truly contributed to FEMINISM like Charlotte Brontë, and doesn't deserve any respect. Austen is the mother of silly rom-coms, and that's all there's to it. Boring, dull, predictable rom-com plot. I still don't get why she's widely known in the world, despite being one of the worst authors I have ever read, and the worst female author for sure.

I absolutely loved Anne Hathaway in this but then again I love all her films. I think she played Jane very well and captured the struggle between love, growing up, family expectations and independence. Jane Austen was far beyond her time and I'm glad that more people will get a chance to learn about her through Anne Hathaway who is so much like her. Only bad thing about the movie was the casting for the male lead. I did not like the actor that played Tom and saw no chemistry between them. I felt that he looked too young and made me root for the rich man instead of "true love". I would have even preferred the man who played Henry to be Jane's love interest since they had great chemistry. I would recommend for a Sunday of Netflix-ing but not as a favorite.

Actually, it was a sweet movie, really sweet movie... A love story of one of the greatest authoress in English, Jane Austen, that I will never though that it could be so interesting like this... But the weakness in this movie, which is also the supremacy, is the conversation they have along this movie... With an unique British accent and so many difficult words to understand, it pretty annoying me, knowing that my English wasn't very good at all... Anne Hathaway herself did a pretty good job as Jane Austen with her accent, her charm, and also her beauty... But what captured in my mind is she didn't fit enough for the role as Jane Austen... In my opinion, Keira Knightley would be the best cast as Jane Austen in this movie... Especially because they have James McAvoy as the love interest of Jane Austen here... I think the chemistry that Knightley and McAvoy already had in 'Atonement' were be great if they doing it again in this movie... But after all, we should gives a thumbs up to Anne Hathaway... At least she's been trying to put some good performances with her own unique accent here but for me it wasn't good enough...

This is an imagined semi-biographical story of Jane Austen. It's around 1795, and Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) is a rebellious young woman before her great works. She forms a combative relationship with rogue Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy) while her family wants a more aristocratic match in Mr. Wisley (Laurence Fox) and stability of money.It's very doubtful that this has much relationship to reality, but it's still a very good movie. Hathaway and McAvoy are great young actors, and they have magnetic chemistry. It's really an interesting way to create an Austen-like story by using her own life. And I do like the ending and the depressing tone no matter how little it has to do with her true life. We must allow for poetic license. I do wish for a faster start to the drama. Once it gets started, there are great performances such as Julie Walters as Jane's mother in addition to the two leads. I like to think of this as a Jane Austen novel that she never got to write herself.