Do you know someone who is addicted to romance novels, but never seems to find a sigh-worthy guy or gal? The French film “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” might be for them or maybe it’s best for the pals who offer a shoulder to cry on.  An awkward 30-something is torn between a cranky English gent and her French bestie, forcing her outside the safe world of Jane Austen’s Regency era literature.  This romantic comedy does have a happy ending, but not before our heroine makes some embarrassing sometimes adult-rated mistakes (nudity and sexual situations).

Historic Background

The Regency period in England (1811-1820) is not the same as in France. For the English, this was the time went George IV was the Prince Regent because his father, King George III, was not able to rule.

The French Regency period (1715-1723) was when King Louis XV was too young to rule and the Duke of Orléans, Philippe II served as regent. During the English Regency period, France was under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte. Crowned emperor of France in 1804, by the beginning of the English Regency, Bonaparte had already parted ways with his Josephine (m. 1796; ann. 1810) and married Marie Louise of Austria in 1810 and his first son was born in 1811. The next year, Napoleon invaded Russia. That would culminate in his forced abdication in April 1814 when Prussia and Austria joined Russia as a coalition and invaded France. Napoleon didn’t rest in exile, he escaped Elba and again took Paris with an army, but by June 1815, he would be defeated again. This time he would be exiled to Saint Helena island where he died in 1821.

Jane Austen (1775-1817) died before the Prince Regent would become king. Her anonymously published novels were “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1816).

George IV would ascend to the throne 29 January 1820 (coronation on 19 July 1821) and reign until 26 June 1830. He had married Caroline of Brunswick in 1795. She died in 1821. George only had one legitimate child, Princess Charlotte, but she died in 1817, the same year as Jane Austen.  His younger brother, Prince Frederick, also died childless (1827) so George IV was succeeded by his younger brother William IV.

Jane Austen died before George IV’s attempt to divorce his wife in 1820. Jane Austen lived during the time of the Napoleon (1769-1821).  The Napoleonic Wars stretched from 1803 to 1815. That’s following the French Revolution (1789-1799) and the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802). Peacetime France only had a brief respite from war (1802-1803). While England was involved in the Napoleonic Wars, the war action did not reach the shores of England.

Other authors wrote about the Napoleonic Wars. Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” looks at the wars from the Russian side (1805-1812). Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables”  takes place during that time. English novelist C. S. Forester wrote about the fictional Hart Hornblower.

Austen wrote about the Homefront, touched by war (e.g. Jane Fairfax being orphaned in the 1816 “Emma”), but not involved in the action.  Her novels never take us to the battlefields and none of the characters are torn by battlefield angst or public support or denouncements, so much so, it is often thought Austen showed no awareness of the raging wars which was changing the continental Europe during her lifetime. Yet this isn’t entirely true. Jane Austen’s brother Henry Austen was the second husband of Eliza de Feuillide, whose first husband was guillotined in 1794. Eliza was Jane and Henry’s cousin and

• Jane Austen: Wartime Writer 

In her essay, “Jane Austen: Wartime Writer,” Kathryn Sutherland wrote:

Throughout the twentieth century, Austen’s domestic negotiations with history were conscripted to serve a narrative of English identity. Her high reputation was tightly bound to a particular view of culture that her novels were understood to embody. She was safe to read because she was disengaged from public events. At the same time, her social vision gained traction because it appeared to represent an England worth defending and even fighting for: England imagined as the timeless village clustered around the great house and the church.

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life

Writer/director Laura Piani isn’t the first to think how the novels of Jane Austen may have affected the love life of a protagonist. In the 2009 novel “Jane Austen Ruined My Life” by Beth Patillo an English professor, Emma Grant, who specializes in Jane Austen struggles to both find a job and new love after a divorce. Someone claims to possess the lost letters of Jane Austen that were believed to have been destroyed by her sister and Emma travels to examine them.

The protagonist in the film “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” doesn’t seem to contemplate the ruined romances of Jane Austen (Tom Lefroy) or her sister Cassandra (fiancé Thomas Fowle died in the Caribbean of yellow fever in 1797).

In the film, “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” (“Jane Austen a gâché ma vie”), the often awkward Agathe Robinson (Camille Rutherford) works in a bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, which specializes in books in English with her best friend, Félix (Pablo Pauly). Agathe lives with her sister  Rosemarie (Laurence Pierre) and Rosemarie’s son, Tom (Roman Angel). Félix often chums around, but their relationship is strictly platonic and Agathe is well aware that Félix is a serial dater and commitment shy. Agathe is clearly on her way to spinsterhood without the excuse of devotion to her art.

Agathe does write stories, but she never finishes. Félix submits one of her promising stories to a British writers program: Jane Austen two-week residency. When she’s accepted, Félix insists she go and drives her to the ferry, departing after giving her a non-friend kiss.

A confused Agathe arrives in England, met by Oliver (Charlie Anson), the son of the couple who manage the residency, Beth (Liz Crowther) and Todd (Alan Fairbarn). There are other writers there: Cheryl (Annabelle Lengronne), Olympia (Lola Peploe) and Mona (Alice Butaud). Agathe is a flutter, trying to discern whether Félix is her true love, embarrassed by a variety of faux pas committed in front of Oliver who feels Austen is over-rated and her continued writer’s block.

This is a quiet comedy that derives most of its humor from Agathe’s social awkwardness and personal distress. Rutherford’s Agathe isn’t far from her own experiences yet because of Agathe’s guileless earnestness we are on her side. Anson’s Oliver with his ready scowl serves as her foil. One might recognize Anson as one of the unredeemed villains of “Downton Abbey.”  He was, Larry Grey, the eldest son of Lord Merton. Larry drugged Tom Branson (Series 3), was against his father’s potential marriage to Isobel Crawley (Series 5), and unsuccessful attempt to keep Isobel and Lord Merton apart (Series 6). In “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,” Anson’s Oliver has a brusque edge that is softened as a man who is burdened by his ancestry and faces the unhappy reality of his father’s failing health.

“Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” is a sweet rom-com that encourages us all to take a leap into life beyond books and accepting the ruins that make us better people. I liked it better than my husband but I’ve read and watched movies about and inspired by Jane Austen and I also have an interest in France. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (September 2024). It was released in France in January 2025 and in the US on 23 May 2025. In French (with English subtitles) and English.