A pleasant, low-friction bit of romantic fiction, “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” is the first feature from writer-director Laura Piani. In her mid-20s, Piani worked in Paris in the venerable English-language bookshop Shakespeare and Company, a primary location in this debut project. When Piani took a job there, she’d already had her head filled as a teenager by the smart women and foolish choices, happily avoided, created by the author and life-wrecker of this film’s title.
The story’s nice and simple. It takes its aspiring-novelist protagonist outside her comfort zone, from Paris to an Austen writing residency in England. Piani’s film is, in itself, a comfort zone for viewers, the latest of many cinematic mash notes to Jane Austen, from “Clueless” to four “Bridget Jones” movies.
Pulling from the filmmaker’s life, the character of Agathe — played with untheatrical gravity and hints of a blithe spirit in the making by Camille Rutherford — spends her days among the stacks at Shakespeare and Company, sorting, helping customers, dishing with her good friend and fellow employee Felix (Pablo Pauly). He’s bachelor No. 1, a bit of a cad but reasonably charming about it. His intentions may be up in the air regarding Agathe, but he looks out for her. He sneaks a look at the chapters she’s written and, impressed, submits them behind her back to the Austen residency for consideration.
It works, and reluctantly Agatha accepts the two weeks in the English countryside with other invitees toiling on their own projects. Earlier, in an anxious state over the prospect of finishing her novel, Agathe is pessimistic. Felix mansplains that she suffers from imposter syndrome. Her reply: “No, I don’t, I’m a genuine imposter.”
The scenario’s bachelor No. 2 arrives in the brooding personage of Oliver (Charlie Anson), the great-great-great-great-nephew of Austen herself. He’s no fan, though (“overrated”), which gives Agathe, the visitor he picks up at the ferry landing, something to argue about straight off.
From there, Piani’s film does its self-assigned work in solid if programmatic fashion, establishing a back bench of supporting characters at the residency, as well as at home in Paris where Agathe, who hasn’t dated in a couple of years, lives with her sister and nephew. She’s a tough nut, emotionally guarded in the wake of the sisters’ parents’ death in a car crash.
These circumstances are layered enough to make “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” a little more than rom-com piffle, though there’s little romantic tension in Piani’s triangle since Oliver is the auxiliary Mr. Darcy here, and therefore a pre-ordained match made in literary heaven. Shot entirely in France, the movie renders its ideas of romantic melancholy and Agathe’s default romantic defeatism in ways that reassure the audience every second. Agathe is either inside her beautiful bookshop, her beautiful, sunny Parisian domicile or roaming a beautiful house and grounds for knocking out a novel while your heart figures things out.
Piani did the right thing in casting Rutherford, whose physical embodiment of Agathe suggests a tall, gangly, striking woman trying not to be seen. The actress leans into the character’s unsettled, often sullen side, though not at the expense of the comic tropes (at one point, nude, she walks through her bathroom door, which turns out to be Oliver’s room). Rutherford provides the internal friction throughout, while the generally frictionless mechanics of the movie itself hum along, with soothing sights and sounds. These include the fine actress Liz Crowther, as the Austen residency’s hostess, quoting Wordsworth’s notion of the best part of life: the “little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”
“Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” — 3 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: R (for language, some sexual content, and nudity)
Running time: 1:34
How to watch: Premieres in select theaters May 23
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
