Becoming Jane

America's romantic movie ingénue Anne Hathaway takes on Jane Austen, Britain's godmother of literary romance, in this drama about the early years of the budding author. James McAvoy plays the roguish Tom Lefroy, Austen's real-life Mr. D'Arcy, who proposes a marriage while her own parents (Julie Walters and James Cromwell) are busy arranging a suitable (and suitably wealthy) husband for her. She's a heroine in her own novel, outspoken and ambitious and unwilling to conform to the expectations of her era, and the details of her romantic life and social definitions become the seeds of her future novels. "It certainly goes through the motions beautifully, evocatively -- there's just some oomph missing," writes AP critic Christy Lemire. "There are the obligatory overheard conversations, stolen glances and verbal jousts on the ballroom dance floor. Pretty standard stuff by now, and [director Julian] Jarrold breathes no new life into it." Maggie Smith, Laurence Fox and Ian Richardson co-star. Features commentary by Jarrold, writer Kevin Hood and producer Robert Bernstein, the "Discovering the Real Jane Austen" featurette, deleted scenes, and optional pop-up facts and footnotes, enabling the viewer to watch the film with a trivia track of historical subtitles. Also available in Blu-ray format.