Oh, please be hyperbole
James McAvoy
This friendly Scot, who made his name in the Channel 4 drama Shameless, has four major film projects. The Last King of Scotland, in which he plays Idi Amin’s personal physician, is out next week. Then, as Tom Lefroy, he seduces and dumps Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway), in Becoming Jane. He acts opposite Keira Knightley for the screenplay of Ian McEwan’s Atonement, and with Morgan Freeman in megabucks sci-fi assassins movie Wanted.
Seduces?
Oh, please, please, please!
January 3rd, 2007 at 3:56 am
Tom Lefroy, he seduces and dumps Jane Austen?
And is this film a comedy? So Miss Austen liked to be dumped…All the women like that…, maybe if we find a Willoughby like Mr Bennet says to Elizabeth
About seduction, I think it is better not to think about it.
Please! I hope that they put the trailer very soon, if we can watch it, we will have an idea of what we are going to suffer
or have a good laugh!! I want to know which options they have chosen for the film.
January 3rd, 2007 at 4:50 am
Speaking of a trailer: people on IMDb write that they show the trailer in the UK before the film ‘Miss Potter’. They don’t write much about it, though… I think it’s only a matter of days before we can see it somewhere on the internet.
January 3rd, 2007 at 10:10 am
Gee, I guess connotations of the word seduction have changed in the last few centuries. But I would have thought people would expect more and not less of a seduction. Silly me.
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:16 pm
So far from the person who saw the trailer we have : ” It looks good and Anne’s accent is astounding.”
I just hope we aren’t disappointed.
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Seriously ?!
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:48 pm
I just hope we aren’t forced to gouge out our eyes with titanium sporks.
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:49 pm
YES
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:50 pm
MAGS…I am i supposed to be banned?
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Why, yes! Your superior web-fu has clearly defeated teh ebil Middle Aged Austen Whore unfairness. We cringe in servile supplication.
January 3rd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Uh-oh… From IMDb:
MPAA: Rated PG for brief nudity and mild language. (edited for re-rating; was PG-13)
Don’t tell me Miss Hathaway takes off her clothes again for this one.
January 3rd, 2007 at 1:46 pm
As a solution to banning, Anonymous Karim, why don’t you practice your manners and diction in Mrs. Jenkinson’s room. You would be in nobody’s way, you know, in that part of the house.
Seduces and dumps? I feel queasy. Must not laugh, must not laugh, they are supposedly serious. In my book, seduction means sex…but perhaps I am being too literal.
January 3rd, 2007 at 1:50 pm
OOOOh takes clothes off….So I am NOT being too literal. Jane Austen and (even brief) Nudity? The mind boggles. Did they mean to film Becomming Lydia Bennet?
January 3rd, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Hmmm–I’m puzzled–how will Miss Hathaway reconcile seduction and brief nudity with her ‘rules’ for onscreen kissing?? Not that I’m trying to be picky or anything, it’s just a little point that teases my mind.
January 3rd, 2007 at 5:08 pm
::facepalm::
January 3rd, 2007 at 7:12 pm
MPAA: Rated PG for brief nudity and mild language. (edited for re-rating; was PG-13)
You know what that means, kids: Deleted Scenes!!!
January 3rd, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Perhaps we are mistaken in Anne Hathaway’s potential nudity. Perhaps it is only Tom Lefroy who will be in the nude. A strip tease for Jane’s benefit? Deleted scenes for teh ebil Middle Aged Austen Whores indeed!
January 3rd, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I actually stopped breathing for a bit when I read that.
January 4th, 2007 at 11:23 am
This immediately brought to my mind the scene in P&P2 when Mrs. Phillips is hissing at Mrs. Bennet’s ear about Wickham’s “intrigues and seductions”. The book text, of course, is worded a little differently:
“and his intrigues, all honoured with the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman’s family.”
It has always amused me to hear Mrs. P. say “seduction”, because I wonder if a “lady” would have discussed this, or did the meaning have a less sexual connotation at the time? Could we dare hope that any Tom/Jane “seduction” in the film is portrayed as a more intellectual persuasion?
Nah, probably not.
January 4th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I feel nauseous.
January 4th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Except that Little Women was published in 1868, and that Jane’s family was not what I would call “poor”, though relatively speaking one could stretch that word. Is Fox portraying Harris Bigg-Wither? He was 6 years younger than Jane, and proposed several years after she met Lefroy. James McAvoy boxing with shirt off– now that sounds interesting. Thanks for the recap, Bart. Perhaps (fingers crossed) they will not butcher Jane’s life too badly. Is that too much to ask for?
January 4th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
There’s your partial nudity, Jessica—the boxing scene. … Not!
As for being “poor,” I would imagine that the Austens were in about the same financial station as the Bennets, wouldn’t you agree?
Now let us think of who the other men could possibly be. After Lefroy, there was the Rev. Samuel Blackall—a piece of noisy perfection, in Jane’s own words. No proposal there. Then in 1802, Bigg-Wither proposed. Six years later came Edward Bridges’ proposal. Then, finally, there was Charles Thomas Haden, whom Jane met when she was caring for Henry, ca. 1815. No proposal here either, but the authoress seemed to have been really smitten with the man.
Did I miss any?
January 4th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Perhaps if the breif/partial nudity does not take place in the same scene as the kissing, it doesn’t count.
And it is quite true that it may very well not be JA who is nude(ish). It could technically be a plucked chicken. If I were a bird and my feathers were gone, I would consider myself to be nude.
Tony, kudos on your knowledge of Jane’s love life. I am below novice level on the Janeite Hierarchy of information and experience.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
As for being “poor,” I would imagine that the Austens were in about the same financial station as the Bennets, wouldn’t you agree?
Well, technically, the Bennets had a pretty nice income–two grand per year. The Austens, not quite so much. But the young ladies had similar expectations.
I think I remember reading in one of the synopses that the “rich gentleman” is a made up character, like Maggie Smith’s character–her nephew or something.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Thank you, Ina. But I don’t do this for my own amusement. It’s the OCD kicking in.
And to prove that my knowledge of Jenny’s love life is not complete, I have a question, and I truly do not know the answer to this one. In my readings about JA I came across a mention of a certain Mr. H.E., sometime around the period when the family just moved to Bath, circa 1801.
Anyone have a clue to his identity? Or in what book this was mentioned? I cannot remember where I first read it, so if someone can shed light on this, my nerves will forever be grateful.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
So everyone knows: I deleted “Bart’s” post because it was actually our fanboy friend, who has now been blacklisted for sockpuppeting. Also, he apparently copied someone else’s post at the IMDB forum verbatim. I’ll try to find it and post it separately as a link.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Right here, Mags:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0416508/board/nest/62696836
January 5th, 2007 at 1:09 am
Did I miss any?
Here’s one! There was a sort of running joke in the Austen family that Jane could always, as a last resort, marry a certain gentleman in the neighborhood, but I can’t remember his name. My otherwise excellent edition of Jane Austen’s Letters doesn’t have an index entry for “You know, that one guy.” (Maybe in the next edition.) Does anyone remember?
In view of the seductions and nudity we’ve been so faithfully promised, does anyone else expect Tom Lefroy to say: “Jane, you ignorant slut!”
January 5th, 2007 at 2:06 am
Heather, I think you’re thinking of the Rev. Mr. Papillon, the rector of Chawton’s Church of St. Nicholas.
There also was a fellow she went out driving with in Bath. I actually have a theory that Jane had all kinds of admirers.
January 5th, 2007 at 2:17 am
This immediately brought to my mind the scene in P&P2 when Mrs. Phillips is hissing at Mrs. Bennet’s ear about Wickham’s “intrigues and seductions”
I remembered that too! Oh! Jane in such a way!
As I said they sketch Tom as Wickham but they turned him into Darcy.
PG 13 turned into PG? Ummm, maybe I will see another versión (PG13) in my country.
I also hope Austen’s are not so poor as the Bennets from P&P3!
I have to see the trailer! :O
January 5th, 2007 at 9:15 am
“does anyone else expect Tom Lefroy to say: “Jane, you ignorant slut!”
ROTFLOL!!!!!!! Good one, Heather! I loved those SNL segments.
January 5th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Ah, Mr. Papillon — that’s the man! Thanks!
January 5th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Sorry for joining the discussion in such a tardy fashion, but I had to check some sources in order to provide accurate information. As to Tony’s references to Jane’s suitors I will add these: Mr. Heartley, Revd Charles Powlett, John Willing Warren and possibly Charles Fowle (younger brother of Tom Fowle, to whom Cassandra was engaged). She was “enjoying their admiration” during the winter of 1795-6. (source: Deirdre Le Faye: Jane Austen, A Family Record, p.91)
Now as to your mystery man, Tony, Mr. HE, I think, although I am not certain, that this must have been Mr. William Evelyn, as Jane did indeed have conversation with him in the Upper Rooms and drove with him in Bath in 1801. This Mr. Evelyn was a friend of Jane’s brother Edward, he was married, and Jane shamelessly teased her sister Cassandra about flirting with him, which she quickly disclaimed in order to soothe her sister’s anxieties. (letter #38 and A Family Record, p.134)
As to the Austen’s income, they were not wealthy people. Again from LeFaye: “Mr. Austen’s income…was rather less than 100 pds a year…” (p. 112)This was in 1798, but through Jane’s childhood, he had supplemented this by taking on student borders.
Well, there’s my mite; I hope it helps.
January 6th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Oooh thank you Helen A. One good dose of factual information always helps counteract the heebie-jeebies I get from reading such evils as “Tom Lefroy was her only love who then seduced and dumped her and broke her heart which caused her to write” and other odious garbage.
Tony A: But I don’t do this for my own amusement. It’s the OCD kicking in. Ha ha!!!! I can relate (”must get Jane facts straight, twitch spaz twitch”)
January 7th, 2007 at 3:32 am
Somewhere Tony A asks who Lucy Lefroy was. She was the daughter of Mrs George Lefroy and first cousin of Tom Lefroy. She might be listed under the name of Rice, her married name.–Otherwise, you can name plenty of suitors or likely or possible candidates for Jane Austen’s hand, but there’s NO EVIDENCE that she was ever in love with anyone except Tom Lefroy (though she did say she once ‘doated’ on Edward Taylor of Bifrons!).
January 10th, 2007 at 9:50 am
heya- guys. just replying to a private message i was sent on imdb by one of you called Tony. Um. He asked me to clear up the thing about the trailer description. I was the ‘hungry burger’ who wrote it originally on imdb but I’m not Bart- i guess he just copied me. Which I suppose he is free to do- it wasn’t copyright or anything. it’s also been quoted on annie-hathaway.com so there’s not much i can do to stop it!Thank you very much for deleting his post anyway and letting me know- but tis no big deal.
if you have any other questions feel free to send them to me over imdb- i don’t check this site all that regularly. or just go and see miss potter- it’s on before all the showings! then the agony can end… anyway i, for one, am very much looking forward to becoming jane! xxx
ps annie-hathaway.com also has some nice stills from the film
January 10th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Good to know, hungry burger. In was obvious to most of us that the text was not written by this other person in question. That’s another story, but it is nice to be able to set the record straight.