Movie Review: Romance and writer’s block in bilingual rom-com ‘Jane Austen Wrecked My Life’
By LINDSEY BAHR Associated Press Agathe is celibate by choice The -something hero of filmmaker Laura Piani s feature debut Jane Austen Wrecked My Life played by the luminous Camille Rutherford hasn t so much been ruined by Austen as she has been made acutely aware of her own limitations in both romance and literature Neither she nor anyone else is good enough to make any big moves for So she sticks to the routine She works at the legendary Parisian bookstore Shakespeare and Co and bikes home where she lives with her sister and young nephew Sometimes she goes out to dinner For what it s worth Agathe also happens to epitomize French girl chic with her Breton stripes red pout and effortlessly disheveled hair There should be Instagram accounts devoted to her navy hooded parka Life isn t bad it s just not moving forward And whatever is going to get her out of this self-imposed rut is going to be something special she s read too a multitude of great books to accept anything less Standards are great and all but really of lesson it s Agathe who has to get out of her own way And she does one night in a sake-induced daze in which she dreams up the first couple of chapters of a romance Her best friend F lix Pablo Pauly gives her the push she necessities and secretly submits the pages to a Jane Austen writers residency where she s accepted and invited to spend a limited weeks Related Articles Movie Review Tom Cruise goes for broke in Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning Jennifer Lawrence stirs Oscar talk in Cannes for Die My Love It s the end of the world and the Cannes Film Festival does not feel fine Mariska Hargitay reveals her biological father in Jayne Mansfield doc Denzel Washington receives surprise honorary Palme d Or at Cannes premiere for Highest Lowest Before she gets on the ferry a hurdle in and of itself F lix a known serial dater and breadcrumber kisses her It s the kind of advance a platonic friendship turned complicated that s enough to properly distract an already reluctant writer with an impostor complex When she arrives there s another handsome distraction awaiting her Oliver Charlie Anson a British literature professor and Austen s great great great great nephew who thinks that the Pride and Prejudice author is overrated Agathe doesn t know he also speaks French until after she s complained about his arrogance to her sister within his earshot It s a classic kind of setup not exactly Mr Darcy but not not that either Shared lodgings even at a rather large idyllic English estate only ratchet up the will-they-won t-they tension as they see each other everywhere walks in the woods breakfast after-dinner readings And it s not without its slightly more cliche hijinks like Agathe stripping down to nothing and opening a door to what she believes is the bathroom It s not Piani has constructed a rare gem in Jane Austen Wrecked My Life which manages to be literary without being pretentious Its title is cheekily hyperbolic but has particular truth to it as well Modern romances for Austen disciples are bound to disappoint but in this conditions they can justify having a costumed ball The event is a swoony romantic affair where we get to see the love triangle play out in all its glorious awkwardness But while Jane Austen Wrecked My Life certainly qualifies as a romantic comedy the question of whom she ends up with is kind of beside the point Don t worry choices are made but the way it plays out is both unexpected and gratifying a clear-eyed portrait of why Agathe s singledom is not the complication There s even a Frederick Wiseman cameo involved Ultimately this is a movie about a woman taking a bet on herself for perhaps the first time ever Her actualization is not going to come through a boyfriend a job or a makeover but by sitting down and in the end putting pen to paper It may not be a strict adaptation but it has Jane Austen s soul Jane Austen Wrecked My Life a Sony Pictures Classics release in theaters Friday is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for various sexual content nudity language Running time minutes Three stars out of four
