I went to see the movie while I was sick on a pleasant fall Sunday afternoon. To be honest, I was expecting it to be an easy hollywood love story. I was not completely wrong but there was something in there that touched me. Why did I wanna see it in the first place? Perhaps because I'm addicted to Jane Austin that I wanted to see how they portrayed her. Perhaps because I am a woman and I want to be a writer that I have strong empathy on such a woman and such a life. Perhaps, I don't know, maybe I have read a lot about how Jane writes about others, yet I have no idea how Jane is going to be created by others.
The girl they picked was, however, too beautiful and too shining to be Jane in my mind. As according to my memories of the readings about Jane, she was rather plain and hardly attracted any handsome guy's attention. I think it's perhaps why the female protagonists in her novels are usually not the prettiest,but with a brave, stubborn and passionate heart.
The movie basically told about how a tragic love story happened to Jane actually inspired her to write Pride and Prejudice. And therefore, the character of Jane in the movie holds a lot of similarity with Lizzy. She is playful, intelligent, stubborn, less passionate perhaps, more strongly tied to her family. She doesn't fall in love with rich and plain gentleman; she loves man with a humorous and distinguished character. The story was like a parallel to pride and prejudice; it's just the novel was deeply romanticized and idealized by Jane while interestingly, Jane's life story was romanticized by the movie.
I don't like the ending of the movie. It is too perfect and cliche. After so many years of painful sacrifice, they met each other again occasionally, looking deep into each other with complex feelings. If is as if time didn't really distant them and their hearts have always been together. What if it didn't happen in that way? What if they didn't see each other after she left him forever? What if they, like many real cases in life, forgot each other in the years after?
Lives in Jane's movie is, of course, full of oppression and struggle. Scarce choice as a woman, and perhaps as a man as well. You either choose to live with money without dignity or the vice versa. I'm not sure living in a modern society, if we have more choices or not. Nor do I know about what would people choose in life. It is my feeling that a modern life provides us more coping strategies, such as watching games, playing games, socializing with different people, that we don't have to face such sharp question. And that develops inertia within us - numbness crams into every space of the heart. Those love struggles only happens in Jane Austin's times, doesn't it?
