Jane Austen Wrecked My Life plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics
Pride and Presumptions
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
Here’s the trailer:
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If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
WHAT HAPPENS: Agathe (Camille Rutherford) works in a Paris bookstore, has a strong knowledge of Jane Austen’s books, is ultimately inspired to write her own romantic novel, based on an experience she had seeing what seemed to be a man’s face at the bottom of her sake cup in a Chinese restaurant. Unfortunately for her, she’s not been able to progress much beyond the first chapter which is just another annoyance in her existence where she has virtually no social life, lives with her sister, Mona (Alice Butard), and young nephew, Tom (Roman Angel), since her parents were killed in a car crash (making her very nervous to the point of vomiting whenever even the suggestion of being in a car comes up [so to speak] so she bicycles everywhere). She’s decided to write her story in English, so her supportive co-worker, Félix (Pablo Pauly), sends that chapter off to the Jane Austen Residency retreat in England; they’re impressed with it, invite her to join them for a 2-week stay she finally accepts due to Félix’s prodding. He drives her to the ferry heading across the Channel; she spontaneously kisses him just before she departs, leaving him with the impression there’s romance in their future. When she arrives she’s met by Oliver (Charlie Anson), the great-great-great-great nephew of Jane Austen (an ancestor he’s not that impressed with, just as she’s put off by his haughty manner)—who teaches contemporary literature—then off they go to the Residency (after she throws up on his shoes, due to that memory regarding automobiles), but his aging car dies, they have to sleep in it overnight, get a ride in an apple farmer’s wagon the next day.
At the Residency Oliver’s parents, Beth (Liz Crowther) and Todd (Alan Fairbairn), are very nice to her (although Dad’s slipping into dementia; Oliver and Mom speak fluent French so when Agathe talks insultingly about Oliver on a phone call to Félix he’s fully aware of her comments) as are the other writers there, although the serene surroundings fail to help Agathe make any progress on her writing, giving her traumas about soon having to read what she’s written. However, Oliver and Agathe begin to warm up to each other over beers in a local pub; back at the Residency as she’s nearly passed out drunk he merely puts her in bed, then leaves. The next morning, though, Félix unexpectedly shows up to speak his romantic intentions to Agathe so Oliver discreetly backs off. ⇒An event at the Residency is a formal ball where Agathe dances first with Félix, then Oliver, back to Félix; they have sex that night, but on the next day she tells him he’s just a friend to her, there’s no spark as a lover, so he leaves. Agathe packs to leave as well, ashamed to have nothing to share at the reading, with Oliver driving her back to the ferry (no nausea this time) where he tells her that, just like ivy or flowers, literature needs ruins to thrive on so she needs to “look for your ruins” to liberate her creativity. Back in France, Agathe goes to her parents’ vacation seaside cottage (which she hadn’t visited since their deaths), gets the inspiration to finish her novel, writes to Oliver about finding her ruins, an English publisher loves the book. In the final scene, she’s back at her Paris bookstore for a poetry reading when she sees Oliver in the audience. They go outside to kiss passionately.⇐
SO WHAT? At last (I hope that my marvelous wife, Nina, gets the pun of how I started this sentence because I don’t know that much of anyone else would), I've finally found something for us to watch that wasn’t so damn violent (like Sinners [Ryan Coogler], The Accountant 2 [Gavin O’Connor], Heads of State [Ilya Naishuller]) or confusing to follow (The Phoenician Scheme [Wes Anderson]), so we both could fully enjoy what we're watching. (Eephus [Carson Lund] worked out the best for both of us of any of these recent viewings/reviews of mine, but that’s such a slow, charming, amateur baseball story that it might not get much traction with viewers who’d more actively embrace the others I‘ve just mentioned so it would be great if I could ever find something to see/write about in the wide world of streaming that would be connective in our household [including the cats if they’d ever watch something than bird and fish videos] and the readership of this blog; Jane Austin … flowed quite well for Nina, so maybe it’s closer to a more universal embrace than what else I’ve been occupied with lately—although I can foresee some macho guys who find pleasure in all of the slaughter in the first 3 I noted above might have marginal interest in [Ugh!] a romantic comedy.) But, how well I can report to you on … Wrecked My Life depends on me having a much better grounding in the works of Ms. Austen than I do, which is very limited save for what I’ve seen on screen in the adaptations of Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee, 1995), Emma (Douglas McGrath, 1996), Pride and Prejudice (Joe Wright, 2005),1 quite honestly none of which I remember very well, so there may be considerably more Austen-related references throughout … Wrecked My Life than I’m aware of, which would likely make this movie even more enjoyable for Austen fanatics.
1You can find 16 of these Austen-related movies—including some more inspired (even vaguely) by her work than directly adapted from it—ranked last to best by Rotten Tomatoes scores at this site.
From what little background I do have, I assume Oliver in this movie is an allusion to Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice (1813) as they both come off haughty when we first meet them, yet ultimately they become happily connected to the female protagonist; beyond that, I’m Clueless (Amy Heckerling, 1995, inspired by Austen’s Emma [1815]). Even if you are well-versed in Austen, though, you might be put off by the reality that this is a French movie with much of the dialogue in that language, not only in the Paris scenes but also in England given the fluency of Oliver and his mother, but maybe about half of the movie’s also in English so even if you don’t care for subtitles you might be willing to accept them for part of the screen time. Assuming you can flow with this bilinguality, I think you’d find Jane Austen … to be quite charming as Agathe’s life isn’t as wrecked as the title would have you believe (and, if you’re like Nina, you’ll be glad to see no one else’s life is wrecked by martial arts, gunplay, or car chases). At a time when superheroes, dinosaurs, psychological horror, and Smurfs are dominating the domestic (U.S.-Canada) box-office, this Jane Austen-allusions tale (whether you know anything about her or not) is a quiet, charming alternative. With its nice-concise run time, the whole experience also doesn’t overstay its welcome.
BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: Jane Austen Wrecked My Life opened in just 61 domestic theaters on May 23, 2025, reached a high of 526, can still be found in a mere 17 of them, has pulled in $1.9 million at those venues so far (worldwide $3.5 million), but if you want to see it you have easy streaming choices where it rents for $19.99 from Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV+, with the CCAC encouraging you to do so as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at 83%, the Metacritic average score is at 73%. Kimberly Jones, writing for the Austin [TX] Chronicle in my long-ago hometown is one of those supporters: “Modestly scoped, sometimes sweetly dopey, and sincerely moving, Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is a charmer. I watched the whole dang thing with a smile, and then painted my nails a very French red in pursuit of Agathe’s perfect manicure. Rom-coms are nothing if not aspirational, non?” Well, if you want a non you can turn to Kevin Maher of the U.K.’s The Times who counters with “Yet the debut writer-director Laura Piani relies so heavily on hopeless Bridget Jones clichés — lots of pratfalls — that the surrounding locale eventually takes centre stage. See, for instance, the scene where everyone in an English pub holds their pints (yes, we love pints) at head height while singing the prewar standard Let Me Call You Sweetheart. ‘Sacré bleu!’ as they say in Hampshire.” Yeah, we get the picture! (Even if you didn't.)
Maybe you’d find yourself more in line with the sourpusses not interested in this current version of a romcom, but I liked it well enough while Nina’s quite satisfied with it which scores enough of a victory for me for this movie choice. I’ll wrap up as usual with a Musical Metaphor, one that I think properly fits the cinematic mood, The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” (released as a successful 1966 single, found on various compilation albums such as 1 [2000]) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj suGa-622E&list=RDmjsuGa-622E&start_radio=1 about the raw aspirations of a budding novelist yearning for success: “If you really like it, you can have the rights / It could make a million for you overnight / If you must return it, you can send it here / But I need a break, and I want to be a paperback writer.” Nevertheless, if none of what I’ve presented creates a spark, then maybe you should just read a Jane Austen novel—or get inspired to write something like her stuff on your own. And, if you need inspiration, here’s director-screenwriter Piani (from the press kit): “If romanticism can somehow sound a bit outdated, our film does not forget that romanticism is on the contrary very much linked to contemporary struggles. I wanted to draw the portrait of a young woman who isn’t 'saved by the man,' but by her own efforts. Agathe eventually falls in love with the right man only after she has proved to herself that she is able to write and to exist by herself.” Your turn; get busy!
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
For your consideration: (1) IMDb's Five Things to Watch on the week of 7/20/2025; (2) New and upcoming book-to-screen adaptations; along with (3) IMDb's Big List of 2025 summer movies.
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