So, yeah. I’m a huge fan of Jane Austen. A Janeite. A hideous, howling, bitter and lonely spinster, according to some characterizations, even though I flatter myself that I’m none of those adjectives, and I lay proud claim to the noun.

The new biopic glorified fanfiction “biopic” Becoming Jane, the latest and splashiest of films designed to cash in on the “Austen!” brand, has been getting all kinds of attention in the press, and the angrifying promos have been all over the TV, in general making the film more irritating to me than it ever had to be. I wasn’t planning to see it, because no way was I going to pay for a ticket, but then I stumbled into a free advanced screening, so I figured I might as well go and get indignant. Mission accomplished.

I went with a friend who doesn’t know much about Austen, on purpose to keep all my foamy-mouthed ranting at a minimum, and even then I still had a bit of angry to repress. Yes, it’s filled with things that I don’t think Jane Austen would do. Yes, they got some Georgian customs and details of everyday life all wrong, and yes, I feel they completely trivialized Austen’s own artistry by implying, or really concluding, that Lefroy was responsible for all of her imagination. These are definitely heinous offenses. But even aside from the gratuitous liberties that this film takes with the relationships, motivations, events, and even the people in Austen’s life (Mr. Wisley? The heck is that?), my other great big complaint is that it just isn’t a very good film. And, much like Catherine Morland, I wonder that it all should fall so flat, since many aspects of the characters and their speeches are all either invented, or straight-up lifted from Jane’s novels.

I found the movie not only flimsy, but lazily constructed. Lefroy was unappealing himself — judgmental, hypocritical and overbearing — and it turns out I found the smart, shy, and wholly made up character of Mr. Wisley to be much more attractive in general. They didn’t do a good job of convincing me that Austen would turn down his proposal because he stutters a bit. Oh, unless I was just supposed to fall instantly in love with Lefroy because hey! he is a free spirit, and he gets the mess punched out of him, and flirts with wine whores, and tells Jane her writing sucks … ? Sure. The one good thing in the whole is Anna Maxwell Martin’s endearing portrayal of Cassandra Austen. She and her (non-period) pretty pink gown that I now covet were all that kept me from throwing popcorn at the screen, even though she only has about ten minutes of screen time tops to steal the show with. Everyone else is so unfleshed, and all their conversations are just these constant flying punchlines that don’t hit very hard. They didn’t evoke any deeper reaction in me than “Ooh, no he didn’t!”

I also could’ve done without the ridiculously corny meet-in-late-life scene where they see what they’ve each given up. But that’s the perfect example of why this thing fails for me. I mean besides the obvious. It’s all so much dropping of angsty anvils and protesting against being just a romantic comedy, but ultimately there’s no real depth to the story or the characters, or even the resolution (“I’ll save him because he won’t save himself”? Please. It’s been done in a dozen “Moment of Truth” movies that I can see for free on LMN.), so I can’t take it seriously. It’s too formulaic. I can’t even give it the backhand slap of calling it pretty, as I did that other bastardization of P&P. You know the one I mean.

I did laugh at the “Can anything be done about it” line, because Maggie Smith rules. And I will say that Anne Hathaway did a much better job than Keira Knightley at playing Elizabeth Bennet.