This "film" reminded me very much of the many films and series based around Agatha Christie's works, in the sense that it's one of the many British period pieces that you *look at* rather than watch. The houses, the gardens, the clothes, the lovely crystallised manners are lovingly presented, every detail just right. Plot? Not so important--and in this case it's a good thing. True, Miss Austen wrote prolifically and well for the reason many authors do--because their own lives aren't like that. Re-writing (or redirecting) reality is what the movie and novel industries are all about; controlling events, making it happen the way you want it to happen, not the way it so often does in real life. And so often, the director and writers' personal agenda gets pride of place; they wanted to show Austen as an embittered woman who "lost out" because she rejected woman's traditional role of wife and mother. If that were not the case, there would have been less emphasis on the many (apocryphal) refused proposals and they wouldn't have chosen the title "Miss Austen Regrets." I think Jane certainly regretted being poor, and being unable to be the captain of her own fate to the degree she would have liked to, but that can be said of many people today, as well. Life is what it is, and you do what you can with what you have.
I watched this film in company with my own gentleman admirer, and his reaction led me to come in to IMDb and look for more information. He said, "I get the feeling someone had rented the costumes and locations for yet another period piece, finished before the deadline, and told the director, "Go ahead and use our stuff to make your film, we've got a few days left on the sheet." I was amused when reading IMDb's "Trivia" section to discover that indeed many of the costumes, interiors (and of course the actors) have appeared in other Regency romance films. It's almost as much fun as playing "spot the blue motor" and counting how many times per episode Hastings exclaims "Good Lord!"when watching the Granada series of Poirot--but not quite.
I watched this film in company with my own gentleman admirer, and his reaction led me to come in to IMDb and look for more information. He said, "I get the feeling someone had rented the costumes and locations for yet another period piece, finished before the deadline, and told the director, "Go ahead and use our stuff to make your film, we've got a few days left on the sheet." I was amused when reading IMDb's "Trivia" section to discover that indeed many of the costumes, interiors (and of course the actors) have appeared in other Regency romance films. It's almost as much fun as playing "spot the blue motor" and counting how many times per episode Hastings exclaims "Good Lord!"when watching the Granada series of Poirot--but not quite.