‘Jane Austen Wrecked My Life’: Review

Dir/scr: Laura Piani. France. 2024. 94mins

Though no zombies are involved, the simultaneously ribbon-bowed and mud-splattered French feature Jane Austen Wrecked My Life still wants to pay homage to the titular author while also trying to do something more 21st-century with the largely familiar material. Writer-director Laura Piani has set herself a formidable challenge for her debut feature, as this requires the characters to be both old-fashioned romantics and feminist-realists, offering escapism but also a reality check. The resulting gymnastic split is occasionally a little uncomfortable, but also charming in an immediate, earthy way. There is clearly a market for this kind of romantic comedy-drama, which recently sold to SPC for multiple territories including US in advance of its Tiff debut.

Camille Rutherford is completely at ease in the lead role

Agathe (Camille Rutherford) works at the famous Shakespeare & Co bookshop in Paris, though she secretly hopes to one day publish her own novel. She’s not into dating apps, which are too modern and cold, and prefers to believe that she’ll simply run into the man of her dreams in real life. Her cute colleague, Felix (Pablo Pauly), isn’t that principled — or is it delusional? — and sleeps around, though he also spends a suspicious amount of time at Agathe’s cramped apartment. 

Things kick into high gear when Agathe, after much prodding from Felix, accepts an unlikely writer’s residency in England organised by the estate of Jane Austen. Here, she is given the opportunity to work on a new novel she has just started — and which might be the first she ever finishes. Never mind that the idea for it came to her at a nearly empty Chinese restaurant, when a naked man at the bottom of her cup suddenly sprang to life at the end of a boozy meal (cue the red lights and violin music reminiscent of In The Mood For Love). 

Even this early on, it’s clear that Piani is someone who likes to play with references, whether cinematic or literary. It also soon emerges that the material’s tone is perhaps best described as slightly overcooked kookiness. The reason it still mostly works is because the actors play it straight, with Rutherford displaying a sense of directness that compensates for the occasionally wobbly tonal shifts. The few instances of slapstick, however, are always more awkward than hilarious.

Overall, the first hour zips by because of its modern feel and breezy comedic notes, but the narrative’s final third feels too reined in. The late shift into more literal Austen-inspired material results in a more sombre tone and a slowed-down pace, although it doesn’t help Piani plumb the required depths of the characters’ feelings to really convince as a romantic drama. Most of the latter material hinges on the obviously dashing Oliver (Charlie Anson, Downton Abbey), who is of course not only the actual great-great-great-great-nephew of Jane Austen but also a rival for Agathe’s affection when Felix decides to show up, as he must, for a surprise visit to see where their deep friendship could actually go. 

The choice between the two men isn’t the screenplay’s most convincing element, and there’s little sense of Agathe’s inner turmoil over her options. This is at least partly because there’s no financial necessity to marry in our day and age – if Agathe’s novel isn’t a hit she could just go back to earning money at the bookshop. Because of oversights such as these, the whole story feels more like a jocular riff on Austen rather than a fully thought-through contemporary update of it. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life has the country houses and fancy balls — all done effectively on a budget — but not the boiling inner turmoil that makes people go back to Austen again and again.

Rutherford has played lead roles before in smaller films but has mostly been relegated to supporting roles in major French fare such as Blue Is The Warmest Colour and Anatomy Of A Fall. This role could provide her with more exposure in both the French and English-speaking markets, as she’s completely at ease in both languages (her mother is French but her father is a Brit). It’s largely thanks to her that audiences will stay with Agathe until the end.