“Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,” which opens at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center on Friday, May 30, is not a period piece. It is a lovely contemporary story, part romance, part comedy, that stands on its own, simultaneously enhanced by familiarity with Jane Austen and the numerous movie adaptations of her novels.
In this bilingual film by Laura Piani, we meet Agathe (Camille Rutherford) crooning alone as she stocks shelves at the legendary Paris bookstore Shakespeare & Co., famous for its association with literary giants such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Joyce during the 1920s and 1930s. With her hair up and sinewy frame, Agathe looks like she could be from an earlier era, that is, until we learn of all her modern existential angst.
With anxiety fueled by a dreadful accident some years earlier, Agathe’s best friend and coworker Félix (Pablo Pauly) admonishes, “You’re scared of suffering love affairs, one-night stands. You’re scared of apps. You’re scared. You don’t live; you hide.” Her true love is one of dreams akin to a Jane Austen novel.
At work, Agathe recommends the perfect Austen novel to each potential reader. When Félix asks which book would be her favorite, Agathe responds that it is “Persuasion” because she identifies with the heroine, Anne Elliot. Anne, she explains, is an “old maid who has wilted like a flower in need of water. She has let life pass her by.”
Apart from the bookstore and Félix, Agathe leads a small life, sharing an apartment with her sister and nephew. She also writes romances, or at least starts them, only to abandon eac project after getting writer’s block. Unbeknownst to her, Félix sends off the first chapter of what he feels is a promising new story to the Jane Austen Residency writers’ retreat program in the English countryside. Agathe is angry rather than thrilled when she discovers his ruse and that she has won. Besides wrestling with impostor syndrome, Agathe is terrified of cars and hasn’t been in one since her unexplained accident.
Eventually, Félix and Agathe’s sister persuade her to go. Félix drives Agathe to the ferry, and their chummy farewell turns a bit hot. She is met on the other side by the alluringly handsome Oliver (Charlie Anson), a professor of contemporary literature who has come to fetch her to the manor house. Sparks fly immediately when Oliver belittles Austen, even though he is the great, great, great-nephew of the author. Agathe points out that men at the time portrayed women either as idealized or as monsters. “Austen made them human beings, capable of humor,” she reprimands him.
Once at the retreat, flecks of Austen abound. The 300-year-old house with its gardens and nearby woods is the perfect setting. The handful of writers gather in the drawing room at night, with small pairs or trios sitting about, chatting, or playing parlor games. We catch glimpses of Agathe at night trying to write on her computer, atmospherically lit by a single candle on the table. For good measure, the three protagonists are caught in an Austen-like love triangle, although they each carry and must face their very modern “baggage.”
As the film proves, Austen, who was born 250 years ago in 1775, remains a cherished author in many people’s hearts, including those on the Vineyard. Dee Leopold, in fact, just weeks after the pandemic hit, launched her fabulously engaging Martha’s Vineyard Library Association Classic Book Discussion Group with Austen novels. (The group meets weekly on Zoom through the West Tisbury library.) It began with “Emma,” which was a huge success, so Leopold decided to continue with more of Austen’s works. She told me in an interview in 2021, “My theory is that her characters are complicated, there’s a plot that thickens and twists, and possibly, most importantly, nothing terribly bad happens. You can read Jane Austen at night and still get a good night’s sleep. That seemed of primary value, as we were in such unsettling times that we were all confronting,” which feels as pertinent now as it did then.
While the group has read everything from Leo Tolstoy to Henry James, the Brontës, Dickens, Trollope, and countless others over the years, Leopold regularly revisits Austen. She’s done both “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility” twice, “Mansfield Park” and “Northanger Abbey” once each, and “Emma” three times. Lest you think interest is waning, there were 78 readers for “Emma” the last time around, and Leopold will be delving back into two Austen novels in the fall and early winter.
Asked what keeps her coming back to Austen, Leopold deftly replies, “Intelligent escapism,” which is also the perfect reason to watch “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life.”
“Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center starts May 30. For tickets and information, visit mvfilmsociety.com/2025/05/jane-austen-wrecked-my-life. For information about the MVLA Classic Book Discussion Group, visit westtisburylibrary.org/publiclibrary/mvla-classics-book-group or email Dee Leopold at dleopold@clamsnet.org.
