It’s easy to get caught up in romance novels and movies. To fall in love with the idea of love and romance, but the reality of life is often a lot different than that. In Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, we see see how falling in love with the concept of the love stories from literature and the legacy of them could get in the way of a romance, or it just might inspire it.
Agathe (Camille Rutherford) is an aspiring writer who’s real life traumas have gotten in the way of her living her life and actually finding love herself. But when she in invited to a private writing intensive at the home of her beloved Jane Austen, her whole life may actually change. Agathe is forced to look at the life she’s living, the people in it and confront just what she wants her future to be. Along the way she meets Oliver, a descendant of Jane Austen who has a much different opinion of the author who’s legacy and shadow he lives in on the family estate. But can the hopeless romantic and the curmudgeon actually get along, or will they both find a new way to look at romance.
Partially in French, with the majority of the movie in English, the movie is just the right side of fluff and romance that it’s not overly gushy or annoying. Instead, it is quirky, goofy and often feels genuine. The movie is lighthearted and easy to watch when you don’t want anything too deep. It may make you question just how much your idea of romance and love was shaped by books and movies you’ve enjoyed over the years.
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is now playing in select theaters.
Overall Rating
About Jane Austen Wrecked My Life
Agathe is a hopelessly clumsy yet charming young woman who works in the legendary Shakespeare & Co. bookshop in Paris, while she dreams of being a successful writer, and of experiencing love akin to a Jane Austen novel, she finds herself desperately single and plagued by writers block. When Agathe’s best friend gets her invited to the Jane Austen Writers’ Residency in England, she finally has her Jane Austen moment…and is caught in a very unexpected romantic triangle. Agathe must let go of her insecurities to decide what she really wants for herself, and to achieve her romantic and professional dreams.
Starring Camille Rutherford, Pablo Pauly, Charlie Anson
Written & Directed by Laura Piani
(Sony Pictures Classics)