The film goes into wide release today, and the media has about a thousand reviews. We can’t link to all of them, but Rotten Tomatoes ranks the freshness rating at 59%.

We were amused by this article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Anne Hathaway looks at the poster for her new movie, Becoming Jane, and winces.

“‘Their love story was her greatest inspiration,’” she says, reading the tag line. “I wouldn’t have gone with that.”

We wouldn’t have, either.

We were less amused by this part of a review in The Hook:

Now an incident in the author’s life– a flirtation when she was 20– is the subject of Becoming Jane, which is less a biographical film than a pastiche of characters and incidents in her books and the movies that have been made from them. While elements will seem only vaguely familiar to ordinary people, real Austen addicts will be able to quote chapter and verse in every scene, which will make them enjoy it that much more.

Huh? What are we, Pavlov’s dog, that any mention of “a truth universally acknowledged” starts us drooling? Yes, we like Jane Austen’s work, but not when it’s badly packaged.

We thought Rob Thomas’ review in The Capital Times was quite insightful.

The makers of the Jane Austen biopic “Becoming Jane” give really short shrift to the idea of imagination. They seem to see the great British novelist as a sort of wry nonfiction journalist, sort of the Candace Bushnell of 19th century England; there are actually scenes where Austen (Jane Hathaway) overhears a conversation and suddenly rushes off to jot it down.

That the film overlooks Austen’s imagination becomes understandable when “Becoming Jane” reveals itself to be a rather unimaginative second-rate copy of a Jane Austen novel, in which the writer herself becomes the central figure.

Accounts say that this is a rather fictionalized version of Austen’s life, but inaccuracy isn’t the primary crime that the movie commits. It’s that this revised version is a rather wan love story in its own right, not worthy of having Austen’s name associated with it in any capacity.

This guy clearly didn’t get the memo:

The film is a little more stiff and proper when it would have been well-served to let its hair down and soak in the period detail. Every scene has a distinct purpose — to hint how each life event affected Austen’s writing. Didn’t she make anything at all up?

Uh? Didn’t he see the disclaimer in the publicity material?

“Although this motion picture was inspired by historical events, certain persons and events depicted in the motion picture have been fictionalised and/or dramatised. Any similarity between fictitious persons or events to actual persons or events is coincidental and unintentional.”

We are SO not making that up.

We agree with much of The Daily Californian’s take on the film:

Fox, though, is the most impressive, imbuing his limited role as the stereotypical wooden dullard with an understanding and intelligence that leaves one to wonder why married life would be so bad with him.

YES! He was great! One thinks that a smart woman like Jane Austen would have come around eventually to notice he’s a pretty nice guy, who appreciated her just as she was (anticipating Mark Darcy, apparently) and even tried to change himself for her (anticipating that other Darcy fellow).

But for all its successes, “Becoming Jane” falls into the trap of so many other romantic comedies—the headstrong heroine who melts at a touch. She may as well be a Disney heroine, which, given Hathaway’s film pedigree, isn’t too much of a stretch. Set up throughout the movie as a fiercely independent young woman, at the end Hathaway is willing to sacrifice her family’s fortunes and her own ambition for her one great love. Though she doesn’t, it’s not by choice but by an out-of-left-field circumstance that the writers were too lazy to set up earlier in the film.

So call it a noble failure, in the second tier of Austen-inspired cinema. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Most of the films produced by the Austen cottage industry pale in the light of 2005’s brilliant “Sense and Sensibility.” Still, it’s tough to look at all the parts and accept that they don’t add up to a better whole.

Yes, part of our annoyance is the waste of an opportunity to make a good film is lost in the Hollywood hoo-ha.

Alert Janeite Sylvia M. sent us a link to a review from Plugged In Online, which discusses spiritual and family-friendly aspects of the film.

Had Jane Austen thought of writing this tale about herself two centuries before Hood and Williams did, she most likely would have knocked out the fight scenes, purged a few profanities and axed the implication that sexual skill yields artistic maturity. That would have made for a nearly flawless film—even though she’d have had no idea what a film was.

Really, there was a lot more wrong with the film than a couple of fistfights and bare bottoms. It is flawed at the heart.

(Incidentally, this reminds us to add that the boxing scenes were quite historically accurate! We researched Georgian/Regency boxing rules for a story that we wrote a few years ago. We were delighted to see bare-fisted fighting, head-butting, below-the-belt punching, and all the fun rules of the time shown in all their bloody glory. These modern wimps and their Marquess of Queensberry nonsense, we don’t know.)

Daily Southtown has a short Truth vs. Fiction article about Becoming Jane, though we have a few quibbles with some of the assertions.