Movie Number 28 of 2025
The Movie: Jane Austen Wrecked My Life
The Cinema: The Kino Cinema, Melbourne
In French and English with Subtitles
Runtime: one hour and 38 minutes
Stars: 4
A French romantic comedy. Who knew? And this is a very enjoyable, albeit a little slow one, which takes the premise of Jane Austen and all of her sensibilities across the English Channel and back again.
Agathe (Camille Rutherford) is a frustrated writer working in a bookshop in Paris - and yes, of course it's Shakespeare and Sons on the banks of the Seine). Life has dealt her some difficult cards. She lives with her sister and nephew after the death of her parents in the years before. She is going nowhere romantically. She had a flirty, platonic relationship with her best friend, Felix (Pablo Pauly). Instead of writing in French, on a whim, she starts writing romances in English. Felix, being a bit of shit, sends the chapters over to a prestigious writer's retreat where she is selected to come over for a two-week residency. And this is where the fun starts.
She is collected at the docks by Oliver (Charlie Anson), the great, great, great, great grand-nephew of Jane Austen. Of course, he's a bit of an arsehole - apparently stuck up and he can't see what all the fuss is about his long dead relative.
And of course, Agathe goes through the joys of writer's block, there are the other residents to contend with, Oliver's father Todd and his creeping dementia, and many of the normal romantic comedy tropes.
And despite the fact that you get exactly what you're expecting in a rom-com, this one is very charming. There are a lot of laugh out loud line (in French and English) the setting is gorgeous, as are the two protagonists. I really liked that Agathe was definitely not a dreamer, and Oliver came across a both flawed and fragile. Felix was a hopeless case.
As I said, it's all there, just in French.
Writer/Director Laura Piani does a great job with this. It's nothing new, but it is very entertaining. Perfect for a gloomy Sunday afternoon before big trip.
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is showing at most of the art house cinemas around the traps.
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