Miss Austen Regrets – A Movie Review

This is a film review of “Miss Austen Regrets.”

“The Complexities Of A Woman Ahead Of Her Time”

I give this film 5 out of 5 stars.

Most people might assume “Miss Austen Regrets” will be a story about “Jane Austen and the one great love of her life she regretted letting slip away.”

If you’ve seen “Becoming Jane,” another fictional story speculating on some of the intense personal relationships that may have contributed to the creation of Jane Austen’s artistry and intellect, you may remember that in that film, a main theme was “the one that got away” (because James McAwoy and Austen did not marry because they did not believe they would have enough money).

But in “Miss Austen Regrets,” the screenplay writer speculates that Jane Austen may have been far more complex than simply an old-fashioned girl who spent her spinster years pining for the men she declined in her youth.

The casting for this film is spectacular.  Olivia Williams, Gretta Scacchi, Pip Torrens, and Hugh Bonneville are all compelling and moving.  They play each role as smart and fully concerned characters, with the worries of their era:  money, reputation, and duty.

Austen is portrayed as brilliantly witty and imposingly intelligent.  Her dialogues are full of double entendres as she flirts consistently, understatedly, yet overtly with every man who attempts to engage her in conversation.  The men who try to match wits with her are easily matched or exceeded.

The script is solid.  Other critics have complained the script portrays Austen as a wine-loving, flirtatious and “modern” women that she was not.  I didn’t watch the film with an intent to find “the truth.”  I evaluated the story as a story.  And as a story, the premise that Austen was feisty, independent minded, and focused on her work and supporting her family is easily plausible.  And given the bravery and cleverness of her novels’ characters, it’s safe to assume that Austen may have been as clever as they come in social situations.

The film’s editing pacing is swift, especially early on.  The editors appear to have purposefully rushed the scenes early in the film.  Later, as the story becomes more somber and considered, the film’s editing adaptively slows.

From the script:

On why Austen never chose a husband, Austen jests:

“I never found one worth giving up flirting for.”

After Austen is unfairly chastised at a party by a former suitor, the suitor asks for her pardon.  She replies:

“You are forgiven everything except your failure to ask me to dance.”

When considering the financial responsibilites she has chosen to take on in order to be the primary provider for herself, her unmarried sister, and mother, she reflects:

“I’m to be my own husband it seems . . . and theirs.”

When facing terminal illness in her early forties, she muses:

“Sickness is a dangerous indulgence at my time of life.”

How many of these quotes come from her actual letters or novels?  I do not know.  But the quotes and ideas color a beautiful mind and personality.

I highly recommend watching this film.  It’s funny, lively, spirited, and practically insightful.

Intellectually and morally, Austen was generations ahead of her era.  Her practical common sense saw through the limitations and hypocrisies of her era’s social systems.  Why she never married is a fascinating mystery that has aroused the curiosity of every generation of her readers since. 

What kind of man could have been worthy of Jane Austen?  That list of men had to have been very, very short.  So short, that Austen may have had to have created and crafted fictional men to fill that void.  Sometimes, when we cannot find what we seek, we create it in our imagination – to fill the void of something we feel and believe should exist. 

Austen keenly understood not only what was “missing” from her life, but also what was missing from her social culture.  She had the force of character and intellect to shine a light on important, central, and emotional things that were absent in her generation – the unrealized wants and the unspoken hopes of millions of women (and men).  And every generation of her readers since has marvelled at Austen’s ability to sympathize with us – to show us what we have wanted and what we have lacked.

“Miss Austen Regrets” on Wikipedia

“Miss Austen Regrets” on IMDB

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