An average movie

I have to confess, even though I have a master degree in English, I have never read any books written by Jane Austen (I know, it is pretty bad…). I have seen a couple of movie adaptations, some good, some rather boring, and I came to the conclusion I’m not a really a fan of her stories. So, I might not be the right audience for this movie but I still wanted to give check it out. First of all, it was rather interesting that the makers wanted to tell her life story as if it would have taken place like in one of her novels. There is a good chance that it happened really differently in reality but accuracy was not the point with this movie. Anyway, I thought it was rather well made but it was still rather tedious to watch.  Basically, it took the characters one hour to finally realize that they loved each other, then, it took them 30 more minutes to finally decide that they should be together. So you think they will go against expectations and get married against the rules which was rather surprising but, no, really conveniently, just after leaving her house, seriously just 5 minutes later, she finds a letter saying that his parents won’t make it without his support and money… Of course, they drop the whole thing, get back home and they both live miserably until they die… Of course, since Austen never got married, they couldn’t have been together but this whole back and forth was just really annoying. Actually, this movie reminded me of ‘Bright Star’, a similar movie dealing with the life of John Keats before he became famous. The big difference is that ‘Bright Star’ was really brilliantly directed and it was just drenched with passion. Still, this Austen biopic was decent. I mean, the directing was solid and I thought that Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy were both really good (Actually, they both deserved a better movie than this). To conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it is a decent costume drama and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

6/10