Jane Austen Wrecked My Life Movie Review (2025)

A romantic comedy about a novelist at a writing retreat, Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is a tonally uneven film with a few fun moments, but far more that leave it feeling flat and forgettable.

I first learned about this film while watching the trailers at a Screen Unseen at AMC Theaters. I was immediately intrigued and added it to my Letterboxd watchlist while sitting there. It looked quirky and cute, something a little different. Unfortunately, that wasn’t my experience.

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is about Agathe, a struggling writer who works in a bookstore and loves Jane Austen’s books. When her best friend, Félix, reads her writing, he arranges for her to spend a few weeks away at a writing retreat run by Jane Austen’s ancestors. Just before leaving, Félix kisses Agathe, and they share a romantic moment. When she arrives at the retreat, she meets the attractive Oliver, with whom she immediately has chemistry.

The film’s premise is cute, but it struggles to be engaging and connect with the audience. It took about 25 minutes for me to feel any spark in the story, and it came when Agathe finally met Oliver. Until then, there is a very slow introduction to Agathe’s life, her fear of cars (due to an accident), her relationship with her nephew, and the idea for her book, but it’s nothing special.

The overall story idea is clear, and if you’ve read her books or seen any Jane Austen films, you know that there’s a complicated and dashing man who the protagonist doesn’t connect with until the end.

There is one conversation in the film in which Oliver says he feels his ancestor’s writing is overrated, and Agathe defends it. She says that before Austen, women were idealized as perfect or written as monsters, mostly by men. Austen made them human, even capable of humor. I found that very interesting, and I wish there had been more insights like that, but there weren’t.

I really wanted to like this movie, and I’m sure some will, but it is so surface-level and never introduces you to anything deeper that it feels somewhat aimless. There is an attempt to design the narrative like an Austen novel, but there are also forced, contemporary sex jokes or innuendo that fall flat. Nothing ever clicks, and something that could be charming feels uninspired. It’s a bummer, but maybe you’ll enjoy it more than I did.

Runtime: 97 minutes

Motion Picture Rating: R

Languages Spoken In The Film: English and French with English subtitles

Should You Watch It? No

Did I Cry? Nope

My Rating: 2/5 Stars

Available: Free on Netflix, to rent on Prime Video, or may be available for free on other streaming platforms