Becoming Jane

How a thwarted romance between young Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) and the dashing Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy) made the sadder-but-wiser novelist an authority in matters of the heart, according to writers Kevin Hood and Sarah Williams and director Julian Jarrold. The slightest knowledge of Austen’s uneventful life shows the script up for a bubbling crock of nonsense—like 2004’s Finding Neverland (an even bigger crock), it works best as a fantasia on the writer’s life, incorporating character types and plot elements from her books into a pastiche—the life she never lived and the novel she never wrote. On that level it’s a diverting game of spot-the-reference, with a sturdy supporting cast (Julie Walters, James Cromwell, Maggie Smith, the late Ian Richardson, etc.). Director Jarrold sets a lilting pace.