BECOMING JANE obtains financing
Alert Janeite Cinthia wrote to tell us that BECOMING JANE has obtained financing (not to mention the patronage of the Irish Film Board) and will begin shooting next year in Ireland. The truly exciting news is that the cast will include Maggie Smith (one of the Editrix’s favorite actresses of all time) and Julie Walters. Who will they play? Who knows? Let the speculation begin!
Scripted by Kevin Hood and Sarah Williams, BECOMING JANE is the true story of Jane Austen’s romantic relationship with a young Irishman and the emerging motivation which inspired her to become one of the greatest female writers of the 19th century. The film will star Anne Hathaway (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, ELLA ENCHANTED) in the lead role, with Maggie Smith and Julie Walters also starring. The film will shoot on location in the Dublin/Wicklow region with a budget of approximately €12.5 million. BECOMING JANE will be co-produced by Octagon Films with financing from the Irish Film Board, the UK Film Council, Bank of Ireland and Scion (UK).
Our opinion: Dame Maggie = Mrs. Austen; Julie Walters = Madame Lefroy (Tom Lefroy’s auntie and one of Jane Austen’s best friends).
P.S. Some info from the Kings Inns “famous grads” Web site on Tom Lefroy, with a portrait from late in his life (third one down in the funny wig)…hilarious that the poor guy was Chief Justice of Ireland and he’s best remembered as Jane Austen’s teenaged boyfriend.
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the poor guy was Chief Justice of Ireland and he’s best remembered as Jane Austen’s teenaged boyfriend.
Better yet – he was LORD Chief Justice of Ireland.
You’re probably right about the casting, but isn’t Maggie Smith way to old to be Jane Austen’s mother in the 1790s?
“the poor guy was Chief Justice of Ireland and he’s best remembered as Jane Austen’s teenaged boyfriend.”
The other alternative is Jane being remembered as Mrs. Tom Lefroy, wife of the Lord Cheif Justice of Ireland!
Dame Maggie is a bit old to play Mrs. Austen but perhaps she is playing Mrs. Lefroy and Julie Walters is playing Mrs. Austen. I think the ages might be a bit better. How old is Jane in the book? Her mother was about 34 years of age in 1775!
Becoming Jane Austen is such a lot of ******, that, happy as I am that Austen gets noticed, I rather regret this project. I rember one page of the book in particular, in which Jane’s mention of a dream in which she asked some man to convey her and her sister home, was converted to a Freudian episode relating to Jane’s strong sexual desire for Tom Lefroy. It’s so bad it isn’t even funny.
Erika, apparently it’s based on Claire Tomalin’s biography; however, I re-read it recently and the Lefroy episode is made rather warm and a trifle melodramatic, so your point carries, though I still am willing to give the film a chance because it sounds like such an interesting project.
The Tom Lefroy episode in the book is only a few pages long. If you don’t have a copy of the book handy, do the “search inside” thing at Amazon. Search for “Tom Lefroy” and the episode is from pages 113-120; you might have to return to the search results a few times to read it all.
Robin, if Donald Sutherland can play Mr. Bennet, then Dame Maggie can play Mrs. Austen.
In 1795 or so, when this story takes place, Mrs. Austen would have been in her mid-50s.
Laurie, Madame Lefroy was younger than Mrs. Austen, I think; she was married after Jane was born. I can’t find a reference to her age in any of my books.
Another thought, and this is a trifle out there: maybe Julie Walters plays an older Cassandra Austen, remembering a long-ago episode?
I’m thinking her birth date must be unknown, since Deirdre Le Faye gives her a death date but not a birth date. Her tablet in the parish church in Ashe gives a harrowing account of the circumstances of her death, and an account of her general excellence, but not when she was born. I think she was about 40 in 1796. Her children were born in 1779, 1782, 1785 & 1791.
In the JA letter’s, Le Faye lists Madame Lefroy’ birth in the year 1749, her marriage in 1778. So she was 49 when JA met Tom Lefroy.
As for Mrs. Austen, she was born in 1739, so she was 59 in 1798.
Then it is likely that Dame Maggie Smith might portray Mrs. Austen and Julie Walters as Madame Lefroy.
I wonder who will be Tom Lefroy. Johnathan Rhys-Myers come to my mind as a possibility, but that would only be wishful thinking.
I saw Anne Hathaway as Elizabeth in a staged reading of A.A. Milne’s (wonderful) “Miss Elizabeth Bennet” three years ago. Like Keira Knightley in P&P4, she caught the archness of the character (even tending toward the pert), but not quite the matching moral seriousness and sweetness. . . . I’m sure she’s improved as an actress since then, though, and it will all depend on the script. (And Jane Austen was not Elizabeth anyway — I just find it easy to equate the two!)
Maggie Smith and Julie Walters will be, of course, wonderful! But the casting of Anne as Jane…I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. It just doesn’t seem to sit right…like Julia Stiles playing the Scottish love interest to Gerard Butler’s Robert Burns……really?
i think Anne will make a brilliant Jane, she’s done some really good stuff in the past. if you happened to catch nicholas nickleby she was awesome in that. and the other side of heaven – see she aint all about fluffy girly roles!
Alas with the timeframe of the film – it would appear then that they won’t cover her 12 hour engagement to my dear old Great Great Great Great Grandfather.
That would be a suitable ending point for the film – love that was – cannot be replicated.
Still just as well she did call it off – wouldn’t be here otherwise.
Wheeee! We have a Bigg-Wither descendant in da hizzouse! I feel quite honoured.
It seems like great great great great grandpa had a very happy marriage, so good for him. (And you!)
Thing is, apparently she had even stronger feelings for the Mysterious Suitor By the Sea from 1801 than she did for Tom Lefroy. I do think biographers tend to blow up the Lefroy thing bigger than it was. It’s just that it’s the only romance that is recorded by Jane herself, in the letters that Cassandra saved. But obviously in this film they’re making a lot of stuff up.
Yes we do – although – there are loads of us – so it was bound to happen – not so sure of the honoured bit – he is not the only interesting member in that line of the family. His Great Grand Nephew was none other than Rev. W.V. Awdry – those with children will know him as the author of the massively popular Thomas the Tank Engine series.
Yes he did have a long and productive union with Anne Frith (10 children) – I’m descended though his youngest son, Charles.
ALso – I think that generally film makers tend to target the all important youth demographic with movie content that explores love and relationship’s of young people. It would seem that older people or mature adults don’t have those stories told.
Now I know full well that whilst Miss Austen had known Harris for quite awhile, and while somewhat fond of him – this was not love. Marrying for position or station was not enough for her.
This angle alone for a women in those times is interesting enough – and tying it to the youthful infatution with Lefroy makes it doubly so.
But agreed – alot of the content will be made up – and targeted for the lowest common denominator.
I’m still likely to go and see it.
I believe Waters will play Mrs.. Lefroy, Jane’s older friend and neighbor. I also recall from the biography she died after a riding fall. She was quite an active and robust woman, but it is believed she intervened in their romance. Again the question of dowry and money.
I think Jane deserves her own movie, about her life, after so many adaptations of her novels. She is such an icon, such a great writer. let’s hope it is well done.
does jane have deaf brother George?
Hi Paul,
No one knows much about George Austen. He had developmental problems as a child and was sent off to live with another family, along with Mrs. Austen’s brother, who apparently also had developmental problems of some kind. The first biographies about Jane Austen were written in the Victorian era and they were too uptight to mention George, and they didn’t really talk about him to the younger generation, so we don’t know specifically what was wrong with him. He may have been mentally retarded or perhaps physically disabled and unable to easily communicate. Another family member mentioned in a letter that he had “fits” when he was a baby, which could mean he was epileptic or many other things. The family visited him at the cottage where he lived, his brothers paid for his support, and he lived into his 60s or 70s, so presumably (one hopes!) he was well cared-for. In those days such people were just as likely to be bundled into a madhouse, so it could have been much worse.
There is a school of thought that George might have been deaf, because in one of Jane Austen’s surviving letters she mentions talking to a deaf man “with her fingers,” that is, using sign language. Whether this was a formal sign language such as ASL or a well-meaning attempt by Jane to communicate with the deaf person however she could is impossible to determine. However, the theory is that if she knew sign language, perhaps it was because she learned it to speak to her brother George.
I stress that it is all speculation. Nobody knows if the poor guy was deaf or not. But it’s a possibility.