Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, 2025.
Written and Directed by Laura Piani.
Starring Camille Rutherford, Pablo Pauly, Charlie Anson, Annabelle Lengronne, Liz Crowther, Alan Fairbairn, Lola Peploe, Alice Butaud, Roman Angel, Laurence Pierre, Alyzée Soudet, Rodrigue Pouvin, Nana Hedin, Frederick Wiseman, and Pierre-François Garel.
SYNOPSIS:
A desperately single bookseller, lost in a fantasy world, finds herself forced to fulfill her dreams of becoming a writer in order to stop messing up her love life.
Bookshop employee Agathe Robinson (Camille Rutherford) has no love life and hasn’t had sex in two years. The aspiring writer blames much of this on the work of legendary author Jane Austen, who set unrealistic romantic expectations by modern standards. Meanwhile, her coworker friend Felix (Pablo Pauly) has embraced casual dating, sleeping around, and often putting on a “breadcrumbing” performance, promising those women idyllic futures with no genuine interest in following through on them. It’s a classic case of a woman born in the wrong generation, thus the title Jane Austen Wrecked My Life.
Such romantic frustrations have given Agathe writer’s block over her first novel, centered on a love story between a woman and the man she initially sees as a swirly figure inside her coffee cup. It sounds like a hopelessly romantic book written by, well, a hopeless romantic. This is not a knock against her writing, which other characters, including Felix and her family, insist is quite good. She’s just having trouble getting the words out for a plethora of reasons, ranging from impostor syndrome to trauma.
Felix may have entirely different views on modern dating, but he is a reliable, encouraging friend, signing Agathe up for a writers retreat at the Jane Austen estate that she is accepted into, because, as mentioned, the writing she has done is promising. The only problem is that due to a car accident that took the life of her parents, Agathe has a phobia for being inside moving vehicles that is so invasive she would rather use that, alongside her imposter syndrome, as excuses to give up on her dreams altogether and waste away without getting her love life in order.
Written and directed by Laura Piani, the film tonally perceives Agathe as the typical romantic comedy walking disaster, finding laughs in the character (Camille Rutherford is highly amusing during the few and far between physical moments) while also doing what Jane Austen is most famous for: taking women and portraying them as messy and flawed complex individuals. However, that might not be enough to sustain even a brisk 95-minute movie when the rest mostly boils down to genre clichés, containing relationship opportunities between two men and her dreams of becoming a successful, published author. In the film’s defense, it takes that simplicity in stride with confidence, knowing exactly what it is doing and what makes such romantic comedies so charming.
With some more motivation from Felix to overcome her past and turn her life around, Agathe accepts his offer for a ride to the ferry, which, in turn, takes her to the retreat. This is where she meets a multi-great-nephew of Jane Austen named Oliver (Charlie Anson), a literature aficionado who does not see the greatness of her work. Naturally, this initially turns Agathe away from any romantic possibility with him, but unsurprisingly, as they interact with one another on the island, they find out that their wants aren’t so different after all.
It’s always clear that Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is working with the most infamous genre tropes. However, the chemistry between Camille Rutherford and Charlie Anson is effective, with the latter eventually locked into her eyes with yearning. It turns out Agathe also might be the one to cause Felix to change his casual romantic ways, with them wondering if they haven’t tried hard enough to transition their longtime friendship into something serious. There are also the occasional heated conversations about literature between Agathe and the other writers, but that dynamic is mostly an afterthought. It’s also likely for the better that Agathe’s tragic past isn’t harped on too much, left alone after being presented as an initial obstacle to finishing her writing.
Every plot beat here is predictable, and the film seems confused about how it wants to balance its comedy and drama (the humor here works to such a degree that, surprisingly, there isn’t more of it). Still, the characterization is a notch above the usual in this genre, with the type of performance by Camille Rutherford convincingly portraying her as a woman who could have been a character in Jane Austen’s books. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life winningly uses familiar material to its advantage, and is certainly no wreck.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
