Agathe Robinson (Camille Rutherford) is a reluctant Parisian writer working on her next romance story. She has already finished the first few chapters, but she got stuck due to writer’s block. With the help of her best friend, Felix (Pablo Pauly), she was accepted into a two-week Jane Austen residency to help her complete her novel.
As Agathe tries to navigate inspiration for her writing, she gets caught up in a love triangle with Felix and Austen’s distant nephew Oliver (Charlie Anson).
“Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” is a sweet, small film about a woman who found herself to become the lead in her very own Jane Austen story. Agathe stressed the importance of Austen as a writer, declaring the subtleties of being a woman when compared with her contemporaries, noting that Austen has been important in letting the world know that women can be vulnerable and strong.
In the film, set in the present time, Agathe is much more vocal about her problems – a big leap to the more reserved female characters in Austen’s 18th to 19th century novels. Aside from her frequent writer’s block, she has decided to lose faith in the concept of modern-day dating, let alone finding solace and love in this period (“I’m not living in the right century,” she quipped).
“Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” doesn’t extend its stay. It works better as Agathe’s tale of self-discovery than the love triangle the film attempts to instill. This is what Austen’s novels have done best. We always remember how the heroines won because they learn something deep within themselves, out of their own doing, instead of what a male-centric world wants them to.
“Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” is now showing in New Zealand cinemas.
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