Pretty Good

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

In my opinion, the direction only brings out 25%-30% of miss Austin's real life where the rest is not justified for her of being the 'Best Cook' of the recipe of 'Love'. Definitely there should have been a point in her life that she regretted of not getting married, though It's not a factor for her struggle of bringing out romance in an era, where wealth became a factor. The way Jane Austin brought up 'Pride and prejudice', 'Sense and Sensibility', The persuasion' etc. give us a broader view on how a young woman should look for a partner apart from wealth. In her case, she was not in a situation but her effort on describing it was magnificent. Isolating her lengthy character, and by only focusing as a single movie apart from 'Becoming Jane', I think this is worth watch.

Jane Austen's (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) last few years, gorgeously filmed and directed, just as it would be one of her own creations, with the difference that her novels end with 'happy endings', like love and marriage, whilst Austen died at 42 unmarried and depending on her family. One does wonder why Austen, whose very witty and vibrant (though social-critical) books are about women and the necessity of marriage for a social and financial security at her time, never married!?!This movie is apparently very closely based on the few remaining letters between Jane, her sister Cassandra and her favourite niece Fanny; an assumption of those very intimate and loving letters, a sort of a hypothesis that Jane chose not to marry of her own, by refusing several marriage proposals to be able to write and for her 'freedom'. It is a very emancipated and 21st Century feminist friendly theory. Some hard- core Austen historians still insist though, that Jane never married because, in her very youth, she refused a marriage proposal from a very rich yet ugly, old and dull man...Mr Bigg...and then she was never asked again...for her no Mr. Darcy came along. Therefore, biographically not fully bullet-proofed but historical events are accurate.Love the many quotes incorporated in the movie!I've never heard of Olivia Williams but I must say she earned all my admiration and will look out for her past and future works! Great actress!If you like BBC period dramas or even Jane Austen's novels adaptations, then you most certainly will enjoy this; a great family-movie which will inspire the interested Teenager to read Jane Austen novels...(so I hope!)

As one of the many Austen fans still smarting from the vacuously boring Becoming Jane, I was nervous about this. As if sensing this apprehension, Miss Austen Regrets set off at a gallop. One and a half minutes in and we are already over the worst hurdles. We have a talented, intelligent lead - an innovative, sparkily humorous script - tactful and assured direction. Phew!All memory of the toxically banal Ann Hathaway as the younger Jane evaporated as the lovely Olivia Williams settled into the part - so successfully that the sideswipe the writer takes at the earlier production 20 minutes in seems inappropriately vengeful.Without hitting the exact spot, this was very, very much better.It played on safer ground. It portrays Austen between the publication of Mansfield Park and Emma, just starting on the first draft of Persuasion and surrounds her with characters with credible lives of their own. It does an excellent job of demonstrating just how fragile was the life of even a woman successful and famous enough to be a guest of the Prince Regent. Only by marriage rather than as a result of her work can Jane support her family in their modest style of life. Questions over her brother's estate threaten the house she lives in but can never own. This insecurity is what Miss Austen really regrets.All the minor performances are what you'd expect from top-drawer BBC period drama and Olivia Williams and Imogen Poots are excellent in the two central roles of aunt who hasn't given up flirting and the niece about to become engaged who is still learning the ropes. The whole production portrays an interesting life, full of love, frustration, struggle and uncertainty about life's choices, and does something like justice to one of the greatest authors of literature and her most intimate concerns.So, if you've seen neither of the two recent dramas about Jane Austen's life and you're prone to kicking the cat when angered, make absolutely certain that you see this one first.

I really loved this movie. I have read a biography or two about Jane Austen and this movie seemed to me much more accurate than Becoming Jane. Olivia Williams gave a brilliant performance as Jane. I also liked Imogen Poots as Fanny. The actors who were her brothers Edward and Henry were good too. I really liked the guy who played Mr. Haden too.I have enjoyed this much more than the new adaptations of her novels on Masterpiece Theatre except for Northanger Abbey. Mansfield Park and Persuasion were OK but not great and I don't know how good Sense and Sensibility is going to be.