Jane Austen Wrecked My Life (Jane Austen a gâché ma vie) ★★1/2

Availability: Still showing in some theaters nationally and internationally; expected to be released by Sony Classics on Netflix as early as this fall. See JustWatch here for future streaming, rental and purchase availability.

Less Sense, More Sensibility

Camille Rutherford is engaging as Agathe, the under-employed clerk at Paris’s famed Shakespeare and Company bookstore. Engaging enough to save this frothy rom-com trading on the trope that too much attachment to 18th-century romanticism can wreck a 21st-century woman’s life.

Oliver (Charlie Anson) and Agathe (Camille Rutherford) need to get past

their ties to Jane Austen to find a 21st-century relationship.

First-time feature director and writer Laura Piani creates a triangle of French and English characters: the French Agathe, working in the English-language bookstore, her French fellow clerk and BFF Félix (Pablo Pauly), and the very British great-great-great-great nephew of Jane Austen, Oliver (Charlie Anson, TV’s “Downton Abbey”). Félix surreptitiously submits Agathe’s name for a Jane Austin writers’ residence in the English country estate managed by Austen’s relatives.

When Oliver shows up at the ferry on the English side of the Channel to transport Agathe to his family’s estate, the rom-com arc begins. Oliver is not smitten with Agathe and especially not with Jane Austen; he finds his long dead relative over-rated and over-exposed. He and Agathe get off on the wrong foot when the dashing, arrogant man’s sports car breaks down on a forest road, and they spend the night together in the car (shades of “It Happened One Night” [1934]). Agathe, talking to Félix in French on her (yet-to-die) phone, trashes Oliver, who then announces he’s bilingual. The bi-lingual, bi-country setting adds a bit of humor to the story, though not much more than a bit.

The folks at the residency add another layer of humor that doesn’t quite work. Todd (Alan Fairbairn), the poet husband of the elderly couple managing the estate runs around brandishing a sword, and has forgotten his pants. His wife is a mawkish, insufferable therapeutic type, possibly intended ironically. The other residents include a feminist who is a gross caricature: she loudly insists Austen must be interpreted only in highly feminist conceptual terms, not personal ones, which Agathe espouses (when she’s capable of espousing anything). Some of the residency crew end up at a town karaoke bar, a cringeworthy scene that seems to carry little meaning.

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Agathe (Camille Rutherford) is an especially compelling character from the opening scene of her dancing in the bookstore.

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The three main actors all have an acerbic side that lessens the sentimentality. Agathe is an especially compelling character from the opening scene of her dancing in the bookstore, showing her lusty, erotic side that lies buried until later in the film. Rutherford is tall, square-jawed, and at times appears physically intimidating. In her many ways of presenting Agathe, the budding writer also can come across as shy and insecure (“I don’t have imposter syndrome; I am an imposter.”). Oliver’s refusal to buy into Jane Austen idolatry is refreshing. And Félix is the good friend whose intentions regarding Agathe remain unclear, even to him.

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The film’s strength would appear to be conceptual; yet the script lacks the requisite coherence.

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The film’s strength would appear to be conceptual, with Austen’s shadow hovering over and affecting Agathe’s career and love life. Yet the script lacks the requisite coherence. It's clear at the writers’ residency that Agathe, like many before her, has writer’s block, presumably created by her infatuation with Austen, though that doesn’t square with the photo of the half-naked Asian man at the bottom of her sake cup that inspired the first 3 chapters of her unfinished novel. If the key is tapping into the free spirit revealed in the dancing-in-the-bookstore scene, why can’t Agathe find other role models, even the befuddled Todd? Releasing herself from Austen-adoration and listening to Oliver—and not to the feminist harridan or upbeat, supportive Félix—might help Agathe get Jane Austen out of her way. But if Oliver is Darcy—that is, a stand-in for Austen’s world—how can he help her?

For all the Austen fans out there, there’s an 18th-century costume ball where sexual energy is on high display (countering the notion that Jane Austen ruined anyone’s life).

In the overly contrived final scene, set back in Paris at the bookstore, Frederick Wiseman gives a perhaps too-meaningful reading of one of his poems. And, to add to this curious moment, he is in fact the Frederick Wiseman of documentary film fame (from the 1960s’ “Titicut Follies” and “High School” to 2023’s “Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros,” his insider look at a Michelin 3-star restaurant).

Piani throws a lot against the wall in this script, while at the same time leaving some plot lines undeveloped. Her film no doubt will appeal to book clubs, Jane Austen fans, and independent bookstore supporters everywhere. She’s written an enjoyable film. For all that, it is not one that will do much more than make you smile as you exit the theater.

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She says: Those celebrating the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth this year deserve more.

He says: A modestly entertaining film. Oddly, the title best refers not to Agathe, but to Oliver. 

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Date: 2025

Director: Laura Piani

Starring: Camille Rutherford, Charlie Anson, Pablo Pauly, Alan Fairbairn, Frederick Wiseman

Country: France

Languages: English and French (the latter subtitled in English)

Runtime: 98 minutes

Other Awards: 2 nominations