the movieGOOMBA

Jane Austen wrote six novels during her lifetime, and all six of them have been made into numerous movies and television mini-series', each director and screenwriter adding their own twist to the story. Two hundred years later, people still know Jane Austen, and I find it comforting to know that in this great big world, it is possible to be remembered, as minute a possibility it may be. The one story that hasn't been told over and over again is her own, the story she lived herself.

Anne Hathaway stars as this acclaimed author in Becoming Jane, a questionable biographical story on Jane Austen's first love. Jane is of marrying age, but insists on marrying for love, even if that risks become an old maid. Her parents push her toward an engagement with well-to-do, but plain bachelor Mr. Wisely. Meanwhile, she meets Tom Lefroy, a cocky, city gentlemen who depends on his uncle for income, and she immediately despises him. However, through her frustration and annoyance with Mr. Lefroy, an underlying chemistry and passion is apparent, and both end up falling in love despite their initial loathness toward each other.

Like Austen's penned tales, Becoming Jane is a simple story, yet full of characters and details, and it was one of the most romantic movies I've seen in really long time. Anne Hathaway and Last King of Scotland's James McAvoy blew me away with their amazing portrayal of a couple's complicated love and the sacrifices they must make for the other's best interest. I left the theater feeling like I got run over by the emotion train. Man, did these two have a great love story. Even when they hated each other, there was some passionate love going on. ::sigh:: And like Austen's heroines, Jane was witty, independent, and intelligent, all parts that make up a bad-ass woman.

I'd really like to believe that Jane Austen's love life was as charming as the one portrayed in this film, but many Austen scholars tend to disagree. Either way, a love like that exists somewhere, even if it only exists in someone's heart and imagination.