To paraphrase the lady in question, it is a truth universally acknowledged that any writer in possession of a literary fortune must be in want of a film that fictionalizes and romanticizes their early life. The Bard of Avon got the treatment with Shakespeare in Love; Hemingway, with In Love in War. In Becoming Jane, Jane Austen gets her turn, with Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada) playing the lead in a portrait of the artist as a young woman -- and depicting her life as having the same mix of passion and restraint found in her novels. Austen's six novels have long been loved by moviemakers -- there have been more adaptations of Pride and Prejudice than you can shake a petticoat at, and an army of Emmas have made their way across the silver screen. Directed by Julian Jarrold -- whose last film, Kinky Boots, was a different take on the battle between the desires of the heart and the constraints of Englishness -- Becoming Jane is a warm and charming romantic drama. And, considering that the average moviegoer knows of Austen's work far better than they know of her life-- and, if they know her work at all, they know it through filmed adaptations of the novels as opposed to the novels themselves -- the odds are far better that audiences will be charmed, as opposed to offended, by its inventions.

Becoming Jane begins in 1790s Hampshire, cutting between the wet, loamy woods and the Austen household. The Austens are a large and loving family -- but achingly poor. The only asset they have to increase their fortunes, it seems, is Jane's hand in marriage; marrying off their youngest daughter to a man of means would mean salvation for the entire family. Jane would rather marry in the name of love -- or at the least in the name of affection, but, to quote another independent-minded, artistic woman -- Cindy Lauper -- "Money changes everything." Jane is the uneasy focus of the attentions of Mr. Wisely (Laurence Fox), whose aunt Lady Gresham (Maggie Smith) is a lady of means and a rather mean lady. But then, a friend of the family, Mr. Lefroy (James MacAvoy), visits Hampshire. Lefroy's studying law in London; he's a dissipated free-spirit whose personality is as large and unruly as his sideburns. He finds Jane and her writings provincial and quaint, just as she finds his London airs coarse and presumptuous. The two meet, squabble and simmer -- which, in time-honored romantic comedy tradition (a tradition which, let's not forget, Austen herself helped define), means they're nuts about each other.

For those still unacquainted, Becoming Jane is the upcoming film -- it's already been released in the U.K., where the reviews were middling -- that takes the brief, documented dalliance between novelist Jane Austen and an Irishman named Thomas Lefroy and blows it up into the romance to end all romances. The only thing history really knows about their relationship is that Lefroy is mentioned in a couple of Austen's letters and their two families were known to each other. The best guess is that they had a brief flirtation, which was quickly squashed when no prospect of a real marriage proposal was in the offing. Austen died at age 41, but Lefroy lived until 94, and is said to have confessed to having a "boyish love" for the by-then-famous authoress shortly before he died.

The movie stars Anne Hathaway as Austen -- word is that she had a lot of trouble with the British accent -- and James "I don't want to play Scotty in Star Trek XI" McAvoy as Lefroy. James Cromwell and Maggie Smith also have roles in the film, but apart the casting, I don't know a hell of a lot about it. Here's hoping the film is somewhat restrained in using Austen's life as a jumping off point for a bodice-ripping romance that certainly never happened. After all, we're talking about a family-supervised, above-board acquaintanceship that happened between two society young people in the late 18th century. How much heat could you possible get out of that? Becoming Jane is set for release on August 10. Click on the pic above to see the full-sized image of the new poster.

Cinematical readers in Britain can ignore all of this, since the movie has already been released there, but we in the States have now received a trailer for Becoming Jane, the new Anne Hathaway-starring romance that takes a brief, documented flirtation between novelist Jane Austen and an Irish gentleman (James McAvoy) and blows it up into the romance to end all romances. The problems that have already been noted by others -- that Hathaway couldn't quite crack the English accent, that the film straddles a convenient line of 'fiction based on truth,' and so on -- are all evident in this trailer. It seems like we're going to be looking at an 18th century version of The Princess Diaries, as opposed to any attempt to actually capture what made the biographical Jane Austen tick.

Surely the makers of this film don't actually have an image of Austen as full of unbridled passions and gusto, do they? The biggest complaint about her work for two centuries -- even noted by contemporaries like Charlotte Bronte, who famously accused Austen of "Chinese fidelity" -- is that her work is all about proper form and codes of conduct, not about crashing through those things. But any criticism of a 'fictional bio' won't stick, obviously. Just look at the recent Diane Arbus fantasy, Fur, which would have been unrecognizable as having anything to do with Arbus if not for the use of the famous name. Anyway -- you'll be able to judge for yourself when Becoming Jane hits theaters in this country on August 3.

I did a double-take when, while reading a Sunday Telegraph story on Becoming Jane, the writer noted that the film was "opening next month." A quick check with IMDB confirms this -- the film opens in Britain in March and the U.S. in August -- the Brits are actually getting a six-month jump on a major film! (The writer has seen the film, and almost gives it a full review) For those Yankees who don't yet have this film on radar, it concerns a little-known period in Jane Austen's youth when she supposedly fell in love with an Irish lawyer named Tom Lefroy. Prada's Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy are the stars. In her interview with the paper, Hathaway talks about taking on the role of the iconic novelist: "The fact that she had an affair that ended badly was really very surprising," she says. "I was in love with her work, and from the moment I read the script I was really passionate about it."

Sounds like standard press junket talk, right? Luckily, Hathaway goes on to open up a little more about aggravations on what seems like a tough set. On doing an English accent: "This was my first big accent undertaking," she says. "There were certain days when it was so cold, and you're trying not to freeze to death and of course, me, I'm trying to do the accent and when it's cold it makes you very tight which can make your voice sound higher, and I started to sound a bit too much like myself and not at all like Jane. And after all that -- pardon my French -- f**cking accent work, about 80 percent of the dialogue in the film was unusable."

On the pressure: "The pressure of playing someone so beloved and of whom people are so fiercely protective was nerve-wracking. I've never been so exhausted as when I finished the movie. It took me about two months to regain my strength." On the weather again: The interviewer descrbes Hathaway arriving on set thusly: "'Can't you pay for good weather?' Hathaway yells as she emerges to shoot the country-fair scene in a period dress and Hunter wellies, an assistant trotting after her with a striped brolly." They better include this stuff on the DVD.

Screenwriter Robin Swicord loves to adapt books for the screen, and she has shown some great diversity in her choosing of source material (Little Women; Matilda; Practical Magic; Memoirs of a Geisha). Now, according to Production Weekly, she is working on bringing Jane Austen to the big screen. No, not the author, who has been adapted enough already, but the book, The Jane Austen Book Club. Written by Karen Joy Fowler, the novel follows the lives of six members of the title group and the relationships and affairs between them. The film version, which begins shooting in November, is set to star Maria Bello, Jimmy Smits, Emily Blunt, Josh Lucas and Ellen Burstyn. What this means for the status of Swicord's feature directorial debut, The Mermaids Singing, which is also an adaptation, is unknown -- it does have a poster, though, so that's good, I guess?

I haven't read the best selling novel, but I do know that it deals with characters discussing literature, which doesn't sound very cinematic to me. Certainly a book that celebrates reading is an ironically inappropriate source for a film. Even if they changed the name to The Jane Austen Film Club, it wouldn't change the fact, either.