By writing and directing an English-style romantic comedy and placing it under the auspices of Jane Austen but also Woody Allen, Laura Piani has made a first feature film that is ambitious to say the least. And charming!
When the credits begin Jane Austen ruined my lifethe first film of Laura Pianiwho is completely the author (in the classic sense in France of “authors’ politics”), the film buff will immediately find himself projected into the cinema of Woody Allen : it’s surprising, but we will quickly understand the reference by seeing the way in which Camille Rutherfordall in subtlety, takes from the old filmmaker (now half “cancelled”) the principle of a character who is deeply depressed, tortured, even traumatized, and yet funny in his clumsiness, his out of phase with his time and the codes of everyday life modern. It is also not impossible to find that there is also in the film something of the young Morettiin the stubborn resistance, sometimes angry, often antipathetic, that the character of Agathe opposes to the world, and even to those who wish her well.
And it doesn’t stop there, since the first scene, an ironic trap for those, many, who hate it, looks exactly like the beginning of a musical. Laura Piani is mischievous, since even the (catchy) title of his film is a false pretense. Even if Jane Austen is omnipresent, the subject is not really its potential influence on the life of its heroine – which will irritate the many fans, including us, of the immense English writer. Jane Austen ruined my life certainly talks a lot about literature, or rather books, taking place mainly in a charming Parisian bookstore devoted to Anglo-Saxon literature, then in an English property belonging to the family Austen where young writers work temporarily in “residence”. But its real subject is the classic journey that everyone must take to find their way of existing, their path but also their “voice” (here it is about telling oneself through writing). And then, of course, “love”, since the form of the film is that of the classic romantic comedy, where we hesitate between two loves, lost between misunderstandings and unfortunate and burlesque coincidences.
This is also where the film reveals itself to be truly “English”, ultimately referring more to Bridget Jones or to the films of Richard Curtis than the moral tales of Rohmerwith his romantic hero (Charlie Hansonexcellent in ambiguity) which has something of Hugh Grant : we can criticize the scenario of Laura Piani to align the scenes using the codes and mechanisms of the great English romantic comedy, but the interest of his work is to disturb its smooth running thanks to the breaks in tone, and this kind of brutality that Agathe exudes.
Jane Austen ruined my life is a film in permanent imbalance, which makes it intriguing: we never really know what the author and her actress are capable of, playing for example with the vulgarity of vomit or spitting (from a llama…): we get lost in in the woods, we break down, nothing happens as planned, and that’s just fine.
-As a result, we greatly regret the very conventional conclusion of the film, which sees the scenario return to the usual facilities. And caress his spectator, who had nevertheless loved being taken “against the grain”, precisely in the direction of the grain. Too bad that Laura Piani did not have the courage to follow through with the logic of his project. Maybe next time ?
Eric Debarnot
