Jane Austen Wrecked My Life Movie Review

Look elsewhere if you’re looking for a fair amount of passion for the night. The idea of romance, and the desire for it, is here, but don’t look for deep meaning beyond a few dreamy looks in the romance department.

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However, I will hold firm to this being a romantic/comedy and there is love. Writer and director Laura Piani covers her bases there, but it just isn’t overly done in either department. For a feature debut, she has an incredible cast to back her up. To be honest, I liked that the romance was downplayed. This movie is relatable, rather than an over-the-top entanglement that no one can seemingly escape, let alone the viewer.

Anson is the spitting image of Hugh Grant from his 4 Weddings days, so I couldn’t get the expectation of that type of Rom/Com out of my head at first, but I wasn’t disappointed in the result of what came… which was nothing like the Grant staple.

The leading players in the cast are Camille Rutherford as Agathe Robinson, a hopeless romantic who doesn’t believe she deserves any love. Oliver, played by Hugh Grant lookalike, Charlie Anson, is someone who has caught her eye. And Pablo Pauly’s Félix, who, for Agathe, will do in a pinch. He is a man she has only a platonic interest in. They’ve been friends for a long time, and that word covers how she still sees him. She cares for him but feels awkward when he kisses her. Since he was nice enough to send her on a two-week Jane Austen writer’s retreat (she loves this), she feels an odd sort of obligation to him. This is meant to motivate her. She meets Oliver in the retreat, so Félix may have dug his own grave.

When asked by Oliver, Agathe lets out that of his great-great-great-great aunts’ novels, she sees herself as Anne Elliot from Persuasion. She, despite having the energy to sing and dance around the bookstore she works in, with joy might I add, the talent to write, and two men looking her direction, sees herself as an old maid. She doesn’t seem to truly see herself as a writer, for as she looks around, she watches writers punch away at their keyboards or fill the pages with the strokes of their pens. This is shown perfectly, by the way, but her page is still blank. She does know how to write, so why is it so hard when it’s demanded of her?

She speaks to Oliver about his aunt in a way he may have never heard before. He has always picked her apart, seen her flaws. Agathe sees how she positively changed the writing of and for women, more than Dickens or Shakespeare ever bothered to. A dive into this and into who Agathe is will interest you and make you happy you ran across this little gem. Why can’t it be a series instead of just one film??? Maybe it can be?? I hope.

The film isn’t very romantic. There is love, especially with the Llama Agathe has run across. If spit is love, he has it for her in bucket loads. At some point, the writers will read what they’ve been working on. This fills her with anxiety. Oliver’s mother also fills her head with nuggets of delight with the difference she sees in Oliver since meeting Agathe. This is just hope, Agathe believes.

There is so much to this story, so many characters to appreciate and love, and the promise in her writing intrigues you; you want to see her published. You genuinely feel for her and ask yourself, will she find happiness?? I can’t give away whether she starts writing or not. See this sweet film and find out for yourself. Whether she does or not is worth discovering. What “romance” in the film that there is, will be treasured, but not overly so. This has excellent casting, I can’t stress that enough, and a great storyline you will treasure following. Rutherford handles, very well, being friends and in love with two people at the same time, something not easy to fake yet she manages throughout the entire film.

This opens today in PHX at Harkins Shea!!