JANE AUSTEN WRECKED MY LIFE
(director/writer: Laura Piani; cinematographer: Pierre Mazoyer; editor: Floriane Allier; music: Peter Von Poehl; cast: Camille Rutherford (Agathe Robinson), Pablo Pauly (Felix), Charlie Anson (Oliver), Annabelle Lengronne (Cheryl), Liz Crowther (Beth), Alan Fairbairn (Todd), Lola Peploe (Olympia), Frederick Wiseman (The Poet), Alice Butard (Mona), Roman Angel (Tom), Pierre Francois Garel (Gabriel); Runtime: 98; MPAA Rating: R; producer: Gabrielle Dumon; Sciapode/ Canal+/Sony Picture Classic; 2024-France-in French, English, with English subtitles)
“You don’t have to be a Jane Austen fan to like it.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
First-time feature film director the French filmmaker Laura Piani is the director-writer of this conventional, satirical, and charming French rom-com with a Brit flavoring. You don’t have to be a Jane Austen fan to like it.
The 20-something aspiring writer Agathe Robinson (Camille Rutherford, British-French actress) is a timid, introverted, dreamy-eyed sales-clerk in Paris, whose parents were killed in a traffic accident several years ago. She lives in an apartment with her older single parent sister (Alice Butard) and her sister’s six-year-old son (Roman Angel). She leads a quiet life, has a few dates but without anyone special as a partner, and comes to work on a bike. Her socially active bachelor workplace colleague Felix (Pablo Pauly) reads her secret writings of a novel and thinks so highly of it. Without her knowledge, he sends in an application with a sample of her work and she gets an invitation to go to a mansion retreat in a rural English sea coast town and receive a prestigious writing resident scholarship to the Jane Austen Society. It happens to be named after the celebrated 19th century English author, who is her favorite.
In England, the film is voiced in English. At the country retreat, where she has a two-week scholarship, she’s greeted by Beth (Liz Crowther), the residency’s elderly coordinator, and by her son, the literature professor Oliver (Charlie Anson), an Austen descendant. He turns her off by saying Austen is over-rated, nevertheless a strained friendship between them ensues.
When Felix visits the retreat just before the annual writer’s ball, she realizes she doesn’t love either suitor. What she’s interested in, is finding her own writer’s voice.
The only character fully-developed is Agathe. The story awkwardly tries for situational humor, to be profound and subversive. Nevertheless, despite these failings, it’s pleasant and Rutherford’s performance is solid.
REVIEWED ON 8/5/2025 GRADE: B-
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