Many Janeites have been up in arms over the past year because of this movie, mainly because it was marketed as a "true story." A true story it certainly isn't - Lady Gresham and her nephew are entirely invented, for example, and that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Loosely based on Jon Spence's biography Becoming Jane Austen (which itself makes huge interpretive leaps, in my opinion), Becoming Jane has much more in common with Shakespeare in Love than it does with anything you might find on the Biography Channel.
I approached the movie as a fictional period piece, and in that aspect, it's a lovely way to spend a couple of hours. And it did have quite a few moments that "did Jane proud." Possibly the best line in the movie is this exchange between Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy:
"How could I dispose of myself with it?"
Anne Hathaway is fine as a young Jane, though I could never stop seeing her as Anne Hathaway. Her lines always seem like something memorized from a script, and never as something she actually thought herself. James McAvoy's performance is terrific as always. Julie Walters got a bit shrill as Mrs. Austen, but James Cromwell was just as soft-spoken and witty as I have always imagined Rev. Austen to have been (pity he had to deliver that bigoted sermon that never would have left the real Rev. George's lips).
My favorite character in the movie, ironically, was the made-up "booby," Mr. Wisley, played by Laurence Fox. As his character was revealed in more and more depth, I couldn't help feeling that this man had much more in common with Mr. Darcy than the movie's Tom Lefroy - who, if anything, came across as more of a Mr. Wickham with his love for the ladies, wild behavior, and affinity for eloping.
For all its inaccuracies and faults, the movie does offer one scene in particular that makes the Janeite heart beat faster: Austen lighting candles and starting work on Pride and Prejudice. As I watched the quill pen scratch out the words "Pemberley" and "Darcy," I could almost imagine that I was really sitting there, peeking in on that moment in time.
Becoming Jane is best seen in comparison with the recent BBC/PBS production Miss Austen Regrets, starring Olivia Williams. While the former is mostly light and frothy as it follows a youthful Jane, the latter is autumnal and occasionally melancholy as it visits the end of Jane's life. But where Anne Hathaway fails, Olivia Williams triumphs. Her Jane Austen is intelligent, witty, sardonic, and sometimes intimidating... yet she also shows us the Jane who had a flirty, girlish streak even in her thirties.
If you have an afternoon to spend with Fictional Jane, I highly recommend watching Becoming Jane and Miss Austen Regrets together. If you have time and want to end on a happy note, finish your marathon with the 1995 version of Persuasion (and imagine Jane, later in life, getting her guy) or the newly-released Jane Austen Book Club.