BACK COVER SYNOPSIS: Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy, Dame Maggie Smith and Julie Walters star in this period romantic drama and biographical portrait of the young Jane Austen, and the love affair Austen began as a 20-year-old with brilliant, roguish Irishman Tom Lefroy, that inspired her career as one of the world's great romantic writers.

FILM REVIEW: At 127 minutes, "Becoming Jane" is a rather dull and insipid affair, requiring a knowledge of Jane Austen and her work for you to truly appreciate how she 'became Jane' in this film as we don't get much about her life as an author. One of the themes of the film was to instil how Austen created a sense of 'trouble' for her characters before finding what they desired, giving more realism to the romance; it's a shame that the film doesn't ever come close to nailing this point down with the character of Austen herself, despite making a half-hearted attempt to do so. The direction and story never really allow the well assembled cast to do much with any of it and as a result "Becoming Jane" just doesn't resonate.

This film has much in common with "Miss Potter", another film based on the life of a famous authoress. Whereas 'Miss Potter' at least involved you on the story at some emotional level, the story of the young Jane Austen in this film gives you no access. Jane is a fiery girl with a keen intellect and a will to write. She wants to marry for 'affection' nor for 'property' which leads her straight in to the arms of Mr Lefroy, an Irish lawyer who likewise toys with convention, speaking out against it. Their liaison is a short-lived affair, leading to many up and downs before ending without much resolution as the social rules of the time simply didn't allow them to stay together. There's much there to hang a strong, emotional story but it's directed in such an uninspired way that you just don't get pulled in to Austen's plight. In the end, you can only appreciate it if you're familiar with her work and how this story shows its affect on her writing, and if you're not familiar, it's a rather bland story in execution, not altogether different from a soap opera or melodrama you see on television. In some ways, it would have been far more pleasant for the film to take a page out of the book of "Miss Potter" and actually cover all of Austen's life and not just her early years.

One positive for the film is the cast. Anne Hathaway is a surprise as Austen, playing her with a strength and vulnerability, all with a perfect English accent. James McAvoy is perhaps the best actor in the film, playing the character of Lefroy perfectly. The remainder of the cast including James Cromwell, Julie Walters and Maggie Smith do as well as they can with the poor material.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact cause where this all went wrong. The film is too long for a start. Given we are getting the life of the young Jane Austen (ie the first act of a play), a ninety minute film probably would have sufficed. The sequences are not constructed with any sense of narrative drama or depth, giving you no chance to have any interest in what's happening. The camerawork is relagated to hand-held shots for almost all of the film which seems odd for a period piece. All of this comes together to tell a story which only hits plot points but not emotional, or even dramatic ones. It's really not well done at all.

A good cast but the film just isn't any good.

TECHNICAL REVIEW: The transfer of the film has been done reasonably well. The picture is clear throughout most of the running time, but mpeg and pixel artefacts do appear, particularly in the darker scenes, or where black appear in the picture. The sound is quite reasonable. Overall, a decent transfer.

EXTRAS REVIEW: An hour and a half of material comprises the extras package on this disc which makes for some extensive, but ultimately dull viewing. On the plus side there is a 25 minute making-of featurette which manages to go beyond the promotional variety and serves as a good complement to the film. On the flip side, the other hour of footage comes from assembled interviews conducted with the cast and crew. It's informative, but not particularly interesting as you're just watching the actors and crew talk about their experiences and how great the whole thing was. Overall, it's a decent collection of extras but doesn't really grab your interest. There's also the theatrical trailer.

BOTTOM LINE: Rent it, and only if there's nothing else.