Becoming Jane is loosely based on the life of Jane Austen, almost as a prelude to her Pride and Prejudice. Set in fin de siecle England, the film attempts at introducing us to the real Jane and letting us in on what went behind the six beautiful novels she churned out in her truncated life.

Austen (Anne Hathaway) is the youngest child of a pecunious parish priest (James Cromwell) and his pudgy wife (Julie Walters). An aspiring novelist, Jane is obviously a woman of conspicuous intelligence frowned upon in rigid Victoriana. Raised in the Hampshire countryside, Jane’s world is turned topsy when she receives the “addresses” (a marriage proposal) of a “juiceless suitor” (Laurence Fox, who fits Mr Wisley to the T). She is smitten by a rakish lawyer from London, Tom Lefroy, played out roguishly by a Scottie hottie, James MvAvoy.

It’s the familiar saga of marrying for love versus money, only in this case, neither wins. After an elopement with Lefroy, her real Mr Darcy, our so-thought intelligent heroine backtracks and returns, to a life where she and her family can live by her pen.

The Jane we knew, or imagined, was far more Byronic than that. One does not want to accept her as succumbing to convention. That may be argued by her choice of remaining single or choosing a profession, but her determination is effortless to the point of sketchy.

In a dialogue with her parents, the mother mouths pearls when she says, “Affection is desirable, money is absolutely indispensable”. And her father adds another winner with, “Nothing destroys the spirit like poverty”. But the woman, whose words are so wonderful we know them by rote 200 years later, is left speechless.

Hathaway is so consumed by playing in a period film, she scarcely becomes Jane. Besides, Jane’s character is colourless and badly written. Ironic, since in the Special Features, writer Kevin Hood calls her “the most supreme artist of all times”. There are other features: deleted scenes, behind the scenes, an analysis of a cricket scene where Jane scores a winning four runs, and a showing off of the manners of ballroom dancing. But for a film that hasn’t touched your soul, why bother with these?

Though this is Miramax’s (and BBC Films’) sad excuse to introduce English literature to the American multitude, there are some redeeming moments in the little literary references. Like in a sexually potent library scene, where Lefroy hands her a copy of Henry Fielding’s picaresque Tom Jones “to widen her horizon”. And when her sister Cassandra asks her what kind of novels she would write, Jane replies: “My characters will have, after a little bit of trouble, all that they desire.”