Though I'm not very feminine in general, I am when it comes to movies. I love costume dramas. If the guys are in frock coats or puffy-sleeved shirts, I'm there. Part of it, I'm sure, is my interest in history & another part is wanting to go far from my own life, but a large part is just the sheer romanticism of it all.
   I'd tried to rent the DVD  Becoming Jane   a month ago, but all the copies were out at the video store, possibly because of Valentine's Day. It wasn't until last Friday that I was finally able to grab the last one off the shelf. It was definitely worth the wait.
                 
    Anne Hathaway plays a young Jane Austen in the process of becoming an author.Still living on the family farm with her parents & many siblings. Her mother wants to marry her off to a wealthy, but somewhat dull neighbor, but her father understands how important Love is to Jane. Her brother brings home a friend from London, a poor Irish lawyer named Tom Lefoy, who has been banished to the country by his imperious uncle. As you can guess, Jane and Tom progress from heated bickering to heat of another kind. It's all set in large houses and in the beautiful English countryside. Love blossoming in the woods, my perfect fantasy. Hathaway manages to tone down her glamour for the part & McAvoy is splendid as the impoverished lover. It's not every guy who can seduce someone by reading about birds in a thick volume of natural history.
    While there are some truly sad aspects to the movie, overall it's a wonderfully romantic story. I greatly enjoyed it.