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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
"Jane Austen Wrecked My Life" is a rom-com for book lovers plagued by reality's disappointments
With "Jane Austen Wrecked My Life," writer-director Laura Piani delivers a rom-com tailor-made for Austen devotees that centers on a modern-day echo of "Persuasion"'s Anne Elliot, a woman named Agathe (Camille Rutherford), who is loveless and yet resists the charms of her Shakespeare & Company coworker, Félix (Pablo Pauly) — except when she doesn't. Agathe harbors the romantic notion that she is living in the wrong century and struggles to finish a book inspired by a fantasy. In the grip of a serious case of writer's block, her life takes a fortuitous turn when she is accepted at a Jane Austen retreat after Félix secretly submits an application on her behalf. This twist of fate leads to a chance encounter with Oliver (Charlie Anson), Austen's great-great-great-grandnephew, and it's hate at first sight. (How Austen!) Agathe's vomiting on Oliver's shoes is not an auspicious start, nor is calling him 'unbearable, arrogant, and totally stuck up' within earshot. Never mind the moment she accidentally exposes herself to him. Of course, they are perfect for each other, but as situations prompt a détente, Félix arrives to accompany Agathe to the retreat's Ball, widening the path for romantic folly. 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' features many literary references and running gags to charm viewers. Piani spoke with Salon about making the film and her love of Austen. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' is about getting inspiration. What inspired you to write and direct this very literary story as a film, rather than pen it as a novel? I was a screenwriter for 12 years, so my language is screenwriting, and I have such a huge admiration for writers. Maybe one day I'll write a novel, but I really wanted to do a rom-com. As a viewer, I was missing the arthouse rom-coms from the '90s in England; it seemed like they disappeared. So, it was a desire to write something that I wanted to see as a viewer. It comes from my experience working as a bookseller at Shakespeare and Co., where I have been working for a long time — this place as a theater stage like in 'The Shop Around the Corner,' a place where you have so many people who like to read and who dream of writing. How do you make it with high ideals about literature and love? Agathe kind of stands in her own way, like many an Austen heroine. She is blocked personally (sexually), professionally (writing) and psychologically (she hates being in a car). I like that she is both stubborn (she won't do what she doesn't want to) and determined (she will do what she wants). She wants things on her terms. But she suffers from impostor syndrome and feels like life could pass her by. How did you conceive of her character? When I started to think about the character, I wanted to write a story about grief — a woman who is blocked and going to face her desire. That would be her journey. And I didn't want to make a rom-com about a woman being saved by a man or by love. I wanted to make a 2025 rom-com where a woman could have a dream other than finding love. So, she would not have impossible romantic expectations. I like it when characters have dreams — not just goals, but something bigger. If she is not able to write anything because she writes one chapter and feels like such an impostor that she stops, or she is not capable of falling in love or engaging with anyone because she fantasizes too much, and reality is always too disappointing, who can she blame? Then I thought about Jane Austen as a comedic way to open the path for so many impossible romantic expectations. She could be feeling that what she writes is not important enough or too light. I heard that rom-coms are a girly, cheesy genre. But it is a very political genre. When you talk about love and romance, you talk about how people live. It can be very deep and entertaining, and that's what Jane Austen did. To answer your question, how did I work on this character? I tried to blend a very modern, contemporary character's journey with elements of Jane Austen's work. 'Persuasion' inspired me the most, and Agathe quotes from the book, saying she feels it is 'too late.' I love that 'Persuasion' was written 300 years ago by a woman who had to address the fact that many women are made to feel that it is 'too late' for them. This is so modern! I built the character inspired by Jane Austen's 'Persuasion,' on Jane Austen's life, and on my own experience as a reader, a writer and a bookseller —and my own grief, because I was grieving at the time I wrote I met the actress who I chose because of her melancholy and weirdness. I love Camille Rutherford because she is not only extremely beautiful, but she doesn't care about being beautiful. She is all about physical comedy and can do all kinds of absurd slapstick. She is not precious, but she is timeless and can play in a Jane Austen book. Together, we created this character who was in my mind and became her interpretation. The more contradictions the character has, the more relatable she is. Agathe has a Jane Austen for every circumstance. Who is your Austen character? What is beautiful about Jane Austen is that you can encounter books and characters all your life and change. I feel closest to Anne Elliot myself, because of the weird mix of humor and her melancholy, which is what I tried to do with the tone of the film. But I am also Elizabeth Bennet from 'Pride and Prejudice,' sometimes. You also feature many other literary references, such as Agathe shelving Julio Cortázar's 'Hopscotch,' consulting the 'I Ching,' namedropping Octavio Paz, and more. What prompted the specific literary references, and what authors inspire you? There is one book that changed my life — it didn't wreck my life — 'The Golden Notebook' by Doris Lessing. I read it at the right age. What is so exciting and beautiful and mysterious are the encounters we have with books. You have books next to your bed or in your living room for so many years, and somehow you choose a book, and it answers so many questions or creates new ones. I am so amazed by these moments and these encounters with books. I remember being a child and being very disappointed with the idea of having only one life to live. Then I learned how to read, and I discovered you could have as many lives as you wanted because you have books. One of the most compelling, exciting experiences I had as a child was reading "The Diary of Selma Lagerlöf." She was a Swedish writer who received the Nobel Prize. She had a disability, and she was sent to the city for [therapy] and became a writer because she had a long train journey. I remember the emotion of being a child and discovering another child's diary about what it means to write. It was mind-blowing. The book I dream to adapt because of the language and story is 'Light Years' by James Salter. Everyone who loves reading has to deal with the huge frustration of not being able to read enough. It's a sickness. Can you talk about developing the comedy in the film? There is wordplay, there are sight gags (spitting llamas), there are pratfalls (in a forest), and embarrassment humor (the multiple nude scenes). Every scene features a kind of punchline — some witty, some somber. I think it is my own taste as a viewer. I became a cinephile because I discovered Billy Wilder and Ernst Lubitsch, and I never got over it. They are the masters. I love physical comedy and slapstick as much as a weird line a character would think and say out loud. I try to mix what I like about life. Comedy is about shame and what we are all trying to hide — all the things that make us poor human creatures — this is the treasure of comedy, being able to laugh about that, but it can be very sad. I love when you feel the core of comedy is a deep sadness, and it is such a catharsis to laugh about it. I looked at actors who were able to physically accommodate that. Camille was funnier and weirder and clumsier — and happier. The Ball sequence is particularly interesting because we get the entire romance without dialogue. Can you discuss the love triangle in general and that scene in particular? The love triangle is timeless. It's been done so often, but it is wonderful to explore. I love this dilemma. I wanted the ball scene to be a tribute to all the books and films we love and that we have in mind when we think about Jane Austen. I also wanted it to be the emotional peak of this love triangle. I like that it is more about the bodies and the way they look at each other, which is so cinematic. Silence brings you back to the beginning of cinema. It was a very low-budget film, so we had constraints on what we could afford, but I wanted it to be magical and fulfilling for the audience, so I wanted the camera to dance with the characters. It's the only time the camera is moving. We didn't have money for big lights. We watched 'Amadeus' and thought, "We will put candles everywhere!" We had no money to buy period costumes. A week before shooting the scene, I realized I would not be able to teach them how to dance, so I called an emergency dance teacher who taught them the choreography in four hours! Do you think, as Oliver does, that Jane Austen is overrated and limited in scope? People who say that didn't read her. It's a posture. I confess I did not like 'Emma' when I had to read it in college. I hate Emma! But 'Clueless' is the best adaptation ever! It's soo good. Emma is the only character who is unbearable to me. But Austen does make a point through that character. I'm not sure she likes her so much either. What Austen easter eggs did you hide in 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' that Austen fans should look for? Two things. When she is inspired after the fantasy in the Chinese restaurant, and she is writing in her room, the desk is full of Jane Austen's books, and the shadow of Austen's face is on the books. And, at the very end, when Agathe imagines the hand of her father touching her shoulder, on her desk is the big book of correspondence between Jane Austen and [her sister] Cassandra. 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' is now playing in theaters nationwide.
San Francisco Chronicle
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Movie Review: Romance and writer's block in bilingual rom-com ‘Jane Austen Wrecked My Life'
Agathe is celibate by choice. The 30-something hero of filmmaker Laura Piani's feature debut 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,' played by the luminous Camille Rutherford, hasn't so much been ruined by Austen as she has been made acutely aware of her own limitations in both romance and literature. Neither she nor anyone else is good enough to make any big moves for. So, she sticks to the routine. She works at the legendary Parisian bookstore Shakespeare and Co., and bikes home, where she lives with her sister and young nephew. Sometimes she goes out to dinner. For what it's worth, Agathe also happens to epitomize French girl chic with her Breton stripes, red pout and effortlessly disheveled hair. There should be Instagram accounts devoted to her navy hooded parka. Life isn't bad, it's just not moving forward. And whatever is going to get her out of this self-imposed rut is going to be something special — she's read too many great books to accept anything less. Standards are great and all, but really, of course, it's Agathe who has to get out of her own way. And she does, one night, in a sake-induced daze in which she dreams up the first couple of chapters of a romance. Her best friend Félix (Pablo Pauly) gives her the push she needs and secretly submits the pages to a Jane Austen writers residency, where she's accepted and invited to spend a few weeks. Before she gets on the ferry (a hurdle in and of itself), Félix, a known serial dater and 'breadcrumber,' kisses her. It's the kind of development, a platonic friendship turned complicated, that's enough to properly distract an already reluctant writer with an impostor complex. When she arrives, there's another handsome distraction awaiting her: Oliver (Charlie Anson), a British literature professor and Austen's 'great great great great nephew' who thinks that the 'Pride and Prejudice' author is overrated. Agathe doesn't know he also speaks French until after she's complained about his arrogance to her sister within his earshot. It's a classic kind of setup, not exactly Mr. Darcy, but not not that either. Shared lodgings, even at a rather large, idyllic English estate, only ratchet up the will-they-won't-they tension as they see each other everywhere: walks in the woods, breakfast, after-dinner readings. And it's not without its slightly more cliche hijinks, like Agathe stripping down to nothing and opening a door to what she believes is the bathroom. It's not. Piani has constructed a rare gem in 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,' which manages to be literary without being pretentious. Its title is cheekily hyperbolic but has some truth to it as well. Modern romances for Austen disciples are bound to disappoint but, in this environment, they can justify having a costumed ball. The event is a swoony, romantic affair where we get to see the love triangle play out in all its glorious awkwardness. But while 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' certainly qualifies as a romantic comedy, the question of whom she ends up with is kind of beside the point. Don't worry, choices are made, but the way it plays out is both unexpected and gratifying — a clear-eyed portrait of why Agathe's singledom is not the problem. There's even a Frederick Wiseman cameo involved. Ultimately, this is a movie about a woman taking a bet on herself for perhaps the first time ever. Her actualization is not going to come through a boyfriend, a job or a makeover, but by sitting down and finally putting pen to paper. It may not be a strict adaptation, but it has Jane Austen's soul. 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,' a Sony Pictures Classics release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for 'some sexual content, nudity, language.' Running time: 94 minutes. Three stars out of four.
Winnipeg Free Press
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Movie Review: Romance and writer's block in bilingual rom-com ‘Jane Austen Wrecked My Life'
Agathe is celibate by choice. The 30-something hero of filmmaker Laura Piani's feature debut 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,' played by the luminous Camille Rutherford, hasn't so much been ruined by Austen as she has been made acutely aware of her own limitations in both romance and literature. Neither she nor anyone else is good enough to make any big moves for. So, she sticks to the routine. She works at the legendary Parisian bookstore Shakespeare and Co., and bikes home, where she lives with her sister and young nephew. Sometimes she goes out to dinner. For what it's worth, Agathe also happens to epitomize French girl chic with her Breton stripes, red pout and effortlessly disheveled hair. There should be Instagram accounts devoted to her navy hooded parka. Life isn't bad, it's just not moving forward. And whatever is going to get her out of this self-imposed rut is going to be something special — she's read too many great books to accept anything less. Standards are great and all, but really, of course, it's Agathe who has to get out of her own way. And she does, one night, in a sake-induced daze in which she dreams up the first couple of chapters of a romance. Her best friend Félix (Pablo Pauly) gives her the push she needs and secretly submits the pages to a Jane Austen writers residency, where she's accepted and invited to spend a few weeks. Before she gets on the ferry (a hurdle in and of itself), Félix, a known serial dater and 'breadcrumber,' kisses her. It's the kind of development, a platonic friendship turned complicated, that's enough to properly distract an already reluctant writer with an impostor complex. When she arrives, there's another handsome distraction awaiting her: Oliver (Charlie Anson), a British literature professor and Austen's 'great great great great nephew' who thinks that the 'Pride and Prejudice' author is overrated. Agathe doesn't know he also speaks French until after she's complained about his arrogance to her sister within his earshot. It's a classic kind of setup, not exactly Mr. Darcy, but not not that either. Shared lodgings, even at a rather large, idyllic English estate, only ratchet up the will-they-won't-they tension as they see each other everywhere: walks in the woods, breakfast, after-dinner readings. And it's not without its slightly more cliche hijinks, like Agathe stripping down to nothing and opening a door to what she believes is the bathroom. It's not. Piani has constructed a rare gem in 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,' which manages to be literary without being pretentious. Its title is cheekily hyperbolic but has some truth to it as well. Modern romances for Austen disciples are bound to disappoint but, in this environment, they can justify having a costumed ball. The event is a swoony, romantic affair where we get to see the love triangle play out in all its glorious awkwardness. But while 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' certainly qualifies as a romantic comedy, the question of whom she ends up with is kind of beside the point. Don't worry, choices are made, but the way it plays out is both unexpected and gratifying — a clear-eyed portrait of why Agathe's singledom is not the problem. There's even a Frederick Wiseman cameo involved. Ultimately, this is a movie about a woman taking a bet on herself for perhaps the first time ever. Her actualization is not going to come through a boyfriend, a job or a makeover, but by sitting down and finally putting pen to paper. It may not be a strict adaptation, but it has Jane Austen's soul. 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,' a Sony Pictures Classics release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for 'some sexual content, nudity, language.' Running time: 94 minutes. Three stars out of four.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Movie Review: Romance and writer's block in bilingual rom-com ‘Jane Austen Wrecked My Life'
Agathe is celibate by choice. The 30-something hero of filmmaker Laura Piani's feature debut 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,' played by the luminous Camille Rutherford, hasn't so much been ruined by Austen as she has been made acutely aware of her own limitations in both romance and literature. Neither she nor anyone else is good enough to make any big moves for. So, she sticks to the routine. She works at the legendary Parisian bookstore Shakespeare and Co., and bikes home, where she lives with her sister and young nephew. Sometimes she goes out to dinner. For what it's worth, Agathe also happens to epitomize French girl chic with her Breton stripes, red pout and effortlessly disheveled hair. There should be Instagram accounts devoted to her navy hooded parka. Life isn't bad, it's just not moving forward. And whatever is going to get her out of this self-imposed rut is going to be something special — she's read too many great books to accept anything less. Standards are great and all, but really, of course, it's Agathe who has to get out of her own way. And she does, one night, in a sake-induced daze in which she dreams up the first couple of chapters of a romance. Her best friend Félix (Pablo Pauly) gives her the push she needs and secretly submits the pages to a Jane Austen writers residency, where she's accepted and invited to spend a few weeks. Before she gets on the ferry (a hurdle in and of itself), Félix, a known serial dater and 'breadcrumber,' kisses her. It's the kind of development, a platonic friendship turned complicated, that's enough to properly distract an already reluctant writer with an impostor complex. When she arrives, there's another handsome distraction awaiting her: Oliver (Charlie Anson), a British literature professor and Austen's 'great great great great nephew' who thinks that the 'Pride and Prejudice' author is overrated. Agathe doesn't know he also speaks French until after she's complained about his arrogance to her sister within his earshot. It's a classic kind of setup, not exactly Mr. Darcy, but not not that either. Shared lodgings, even at a rather large, idyllic English estate, only ratchet up the will-they-won't-they tension as they see each other everywhere: walks in the woods, breakfast, after-dinner readings. And it's not without its slightly more cliche hijinks, like Agathe stripping down to nothing and opening a door to what she believes is the bathroom. It's not. Piani has constructed a rare gem in 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,' which manages to be literary without being pretentious. Its title is cheekily hyperbolic but has some truth to it as well. Modern romances for Austen disciples are bound to disappoint but, in this environment, they can justify having a costumed ball. The event is a swoony, romantic affair where we get to see the love triangle play out in all its glorious awkwardness. But while 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' certainly qualifies as a romantic comedy, the question of whom she ends up with is kind of beside the point. Don't worry, choices are made, but the way it plays out is both unexpected and gratifying — a clear-eyed portrait of why Agathe's singledom is not the problem. There's even a Frederick Wiseman cameo involved. Ultimately, this is a movie about a woman taking a bet on herself for perhaps the first time ever. Her actualization is not going to come through a boyfriend, a job or a makeover, but by sitting down and finally putting pen to paper. It may not be a strict adaptation, but it has Jane Austen's soul. 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,' a Sony Pictures Classics release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for 'some sexual content, nudity, language.' Running time: 94 minutes. Three stars out of four.
Wall Street Journal
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Ellmann's Joyce' Review: On the Trail of Genius
Richard Ellmann's 'James Joyce' is widely regarded as the greatest literary biography of the 20th century, much as some see Joyce's novel 'Ulysses,' published in 1922, as its supreme work of fiction. 'James Joyce' is a wonderful achievement. In some 900 pages, including ample footnotes, it confronts the strange life of a complex man, giving pleasure on every page. Ellmann circles his subject with a light tread and humorous insight, not without occasional severity, as one might treat a misbehaving family member. Forty-one when the biography was published in 1959, he was a year older than Joyce himself when copies of 'Ulysses' arrived at the Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Co., which was also its publisher. 'Ulysses' has proved indigestible to many well-intentioned readers, and not everyone was instantly won over by Ellmann's biography. From the columns of the Times Literary Supplement to the pubs of Dublin, the American academic was criticized for lack of subtlety—bluntly, knowledge—in evoking the atmosphere of early-century Dublin, for accepting Joyce's fiction generally as a record of actual events, and for treating the character Stephen Hero as a straightforward self-portrait. The compliment paid to the book by the critic Frank Kermode, that it 'proceeds without the least fuss,' could be taken as double-edged. Now we have a biography of the biographer. Zachary Leader guides us through Ellmann's life, from his birth in 1918 into a 'comfortably upper-middle-class' Jewish family in Highland Park, Mich., to his death in Oxford 69 years later. 'Ellmann's Joyce' is also an exercise in that underexposed genre, the biography of a book. Part II provides an account of the making of 'James Joyce.' Mr. Leader, an emeritus professor of English at the University of Roehampton in London, usually writes long: He is the author of a 1,000-page biography of the novelist Kingsley Amis; more recently, he produced two hefty volumes on Saul Bellow. 'Ellmann's Joyce' is more modestly proportioned. It is, the author says, 'neither a conventional biography nor a conventional analytic study.' It sits comfortably between the two. Ellmann's parents were immigrants from Russia and Romania. Their conscientious adherence to Jewish culture and opposition to 'marrying out' caused a degree of estrangement in their American-born sons, Richard and Erwin, who were drawn to non-Jewish women. There are parallels with Joyce's feelings of constraint in post-Victorian Ireland ruled by a tyrannical clergy. In 1904, when he was 22, Joyce fled to southern Europe with his girlfriend of just a few months, Nora Barnacle ('She'll stick to him,' his father quipped). They went first to the Austrian city of Pola (now Pula, in Croatia), then Trieste, and on to Paris, where they and their children settled, insofar as they settled anywhere. (Giorgio was born in 1905, Lucia in 1907; the Joyces were not formally married until 1931.) In a neat coincidence, Ellmann, feeling hemmed in by family pressure even at the age of 31, eloped with the woman he intended to marry. Ellmann's parents grew to tolerate Mary Donahue, but not her Christian name. To them, she was always 'Joan.'
