Becoming Depressed

I took my Mother In Law out to lunch and to see the movie Becoming Jane today. It was a nice outing and I enjoyed getting away from my house. I have to say that 18th Century England is so much more beautiful (and quieter!) than my house. It was hard to come home to the mom-can-I’s and the sticky kitchen table after experiencing the beauty that is Pre Regency England.

One thing I have to say **** STOP RIGHT HERE IF YOU DON’T WANT ME TO RUIN THE MOVIE FOR YOU**** is that it was a little depressing. I don’t know what I was expecting, I knew Jane Austin never married and died young, and yet somehow I went into this movie expecting one of her novels, not her real life.

It almost threw a pallor over her books for me. You could see where she got the ideas for the characters for her books. It was almost in opposition to her real life. She created Darcy out of Wickham. She tied up in neat little bows, what in her real life came unraveled. She creates in her books a love between two people which can overcome propriety, and yet the love she experienced was not enough to cause her to throw off decorum and correctness.

I know I am over analyzing this, and I wonder how much of it is true and how much of it is Hollywoodized. But honestly, I wish I had not seen it. Now, every time I read Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, I’m going to think how the story is everything the author’s life was not.