"Jane Austen Wrecked My Life" Too & I'm Better Off For It

A lonely bookseller longs for adventure, and something more than what's on the written page but can her Darcy become a lifestyle?

Premise: An aspiring romance author living in France and working as a bookseller, Agathe (Camille Rutherford), coincidentally bilingual in French and English, goes on holiday at a Jane Austen residency in England for two weeks. There she meets the great-great-great-add another if you dare, nephew of Jane Austen, a disillusioned, prickly pear of a Comp Lit professor of a man, name Oliver (Charles Anson) wrapped in dark, brooding good looks who thinks Jane Austen is overrated when compared to the “scope of imagination of Dickens or Shakespeare.”

Spoilers ahead.

An Elizabeth Bennet - Mark Darcy type meet cute gives way to stolen glances and shared laughs amidst heated gazes

Cue the yawns and protestations for the haughty Oliver and his willful ignorance. Agathe sets him straight in an epic burn-down that only a confident woman of a degree of life experience who reads real literature can. She’s authentic and down-to-earth and still manages to tell it to him straight, reminding him what the landscape of published female-penned books looked like before Austen came on to the scene (hint: barren) and how females were typically depicted - in 2D format. Nonetheless, the sparks fly for the newly shipped Olivathe or Agather because Oliver likes being challenged and Agathe likes the contrast of dark hair, pale skin, and piercing blue eyes. This doesn’t bode well for Agathe’s best friend-to-potential-lover, her workmate, Félix (Pablo Pauly), who is the one who submitted her work to the residency without her knowledge and is her ride-or-die.

Agathe reads at the former home of Jane Austen but she doesn’t write much

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It's probably not surprising to the majority of you who have read my work, but I’m a big Jane Austen fan, so any film that has her name in its title already has me halfway to the theater, even if the screen is an hour away in peak Boston traffic and the overcrowded parking garage has me cursing four-letter words at the number of reserved spots that are unfortunately not reserved for me.

All this aside, this film is a perfect mid-week elixir and would equally be suitable for a Friday “I survived the workweek” treat. Like any good slow-burn romance, I gradually fell in love with Agathe, who, despite her occasional dour expressions, revealed a deep hunger and thirst for life and connection, not just sexually, but most passionately in a romantic sense. She bonded with alpacas, Oliver’s parents, and the array of eclectic writer personalities at the retreat. She was equally at home, embarking on solo treks, whether walks, in which she got lost, or bike rides to explore her surroundings. She showed fortitude in overcoming the tragedy of her parents’ deaths years ago, a car accident she survived from the backseat, and managed to get back into not just one, but two cars, despite how uncomfortable it was for her.

Ideally, romance happens when you’re in a good place and have done the work to welcome someone into your life. Romance books and films get this aspect, but they also tend to favor meet-cutes happening at inconvenient times before the work has happened, thereby disrupting said plans. In that sense, this film follows that formula: Agathe’s personal journey to find herself, and her meeting with Oliver at a time and place where a lasting relationship isn’t ideal for her.

Experience vs. Lifestyle

As someone who treats every show like an episode of Masterpiece Mystery (my husband can confirm this), I constantly want to see where a story is going and unpackage and repackage it in various permutations as I watch it. My brain goes into hyper-solve mode at all times. I’m even guilty of doing this with The Studio on Apple TV+ big-time, and there’s no overarching storyline in that show, and each episode is only 30 minutes long.

Books do become a part of our lives. They do reveal our true nature. Thanks Agathe.

Still, this film had me wondering if Darcy or Oliver had long-term potential. Is he the guy Agathe hooks up with because they danced the cotillion and quadrille during a Cosplay Regency-era Ball at the residency, and the candelit evening had them drunk with lust? Agathe does admit early on that she was born in the wrong century for romance…Maybe she’s just caught up in the moment.

So here’s where I landed with this puzzle. I borrowed a line from my former self:

Here it is: Experience is a lifestyle. Jane Austen is mine, largely Agathe’s, and now, the newly awakened Oliver’s too. We may live in an era of dating apps and swipe rights. Still, the allure of in-person spiritual connection and lingering glances across a firelit salon, discussing the essence of literature, prevails. If this resonates with you, then this film is for you.

Side Note: That’s not to say I didn’t finish the movie, mentally working out the logistics of a long-distance relationship, and wondering if this whole experience was a kind of band-aid for Oliver, given the ambiguous circumstances under which he left the university. In other words, is Agathe his salvation from himself? Perhaps Oliver needs his own growth story. I’m volunteering to pen that POV - the backstory that led him to her.

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