The reviews are still running mostly positive, though in many cases the praise seems lukewarm. Of course, reviewers who don’t like Jane Austen movies are unlikely to enjoy Becoming Jane. We are, however, heartened by those who have not been fooled by the Made Up Story; for instance, Keith Cohen in The Blue Valley Sun.

This movie loses credibility by being advertised as a biographical portrait of the early years of author Jane Austen and the love affair that gave her the inspiration for her writings. It is historically inaccurate and based solely on a couple of letters written by Jane to her sister Cassandra and an admission by Tom Lefroy in old age that he had once been in “boyish love” with Austen.

The movie is a speculative flight of unsubstantiated fancy. With this flimsy foundation, a clunky and formulaic script attempts to imitate Austen’s literary approach to romance.

[. . .]

The movie’s major failure is its inability to make the words on a page from one of the greatest writers of English literature come alive on screen. You need to read Austen’s novels to truly appreciate her genius in matters of the heart and soul.

Hear, hear! Somebody at this joint is scheduled for a good belt from the Cluebat of Janeite Righteousness, though:

Hottie Anne Hathaway plays homely Jane Austen

HOMELY? Argh.

We were amused by this comment in The Washington Post’s column, The Family Filmgoer, which reviews films with an eye to age-appropriateness:

women at an inn seem to be prostitutes.

Considering one of them is billed as “Wine Whore,” we would say they definitely were prostitutes!

Alert Janeite Susan couldn’t believe no one had sent us the Wall Street Journal’s review of the film:

It surely could not have been the intention of the filmmakers to trivialize Austen’s art. But with myriad allusions to the novels — the haughty neighborhood dowager (Maggie Smith, looking like an aging madam), who recalls “Pride and Prejudice”’s Lady Catherine, with one unsuitable suitor intoning, “It’s a truth universally acknowledged…” — that’s exactly what happens. Austen comes off here more as stenographer than writer. Worse, the movie has Tom Lefroy as her condescending guide. If she wants to be a novelist she must learn about passion he says, pointing her in the direction of “Tom Jones.” Thank you, kind sir.

Excellently said!

This review annoyed us as it took the oft-repeated tack, when Janeites are unhappy with a film adaptation, that we’re just overly picky pedants who can’t appreciate a good movie when it smacks us in the nose.

Those who want citations, references and footnotes from “Becoming Jane” will be disappointed. Those who want the essence of Jane Austen, her books, a feeling for the countryside and the period in which she wrote (the late 1700s and early 1800s), surely will not.

Those looking for grievances will easily find them. For instance, Austen wrote with a quill, not a pen, and anyone who graduated from a typewriter to a computer for writing long documents has to have some grasp of the difference those two tools might make for an author. The temptation to gripe about such a discrepancy is great.

The movie was filmed in Ireland. Austen lived in Hampshire, England. Who cares? Director Julian Jarrold achieves the solemn palette required of the subject and the suffocating social mores of the turn of her period without sacrificing color and style.

Honestly, there’s so much more wrong with the film than a few missteps in period details, though it is possible to get so caught up in such things that one misses the bigger picture.

Alert Janeite Rebecca sent us a blog review of the film from April (the blogger is in Australia) who expressed our own displeasure with the film quite well:

It’s a shame. Jane Austen led a very interesting - if quiet - life, and was in herself a fascinating character. Becoming Jane is a wasted opportunity to tell the story of her life.

Yep.