On a chilly autumn evening a few days ago, Family Appleyard settled down in front of the big telly in the back room, the one above the fireplace which was glowing nicely and keeping the room warm since it’s far too early to put the heating on.
The film chosen for the evening’s entertainment was a little thing called Jane Austen a gâché ma vie, a flick which was truly bilingual since the dialogue was about 60% French and 40% English, by my probably inaccurate reckoning.
This isn’t really a review, but a few things stood out. Firstly, they had used the real, legendary bookshop Shakespeare & Company, in Paris, as a key part of the first half of the story (our heroes work there, apparently). Then, when the main character set off to England from France, she was seemingly able to walk along a harbour wall, apparently in Calais, and straight onto a ferry which, for reasons which are still confusing me several days later, then appeared to set sail towards England from Dover. Once she arrived in England, she was met by a man driving a sports car with the most fake British numberplate I’ve ever seen, and driven to the most French-looking country house ever used to depict a house in Hampshire. It certainly didn’t look anything like Chawton.
Chawton House, Hampshire. As not seen in the film
All of that said, I’m really just picking very small nits. I see that on Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of the reviews are positive, which is a really good score. If I had to sum it up in a couple of sentences, I’d say that it was a sweet film – it didn’t have any unnecessary violence, which is just what the doctor ordered (I have a fairly low threshold for seeing people having their brains blown out while I’m relaxing in front of the TV), and the story had a sweet beginning, an agreeable middle, and a delightful ending.
So, it was sweet and enjoyable. You can’t say fairer than that.
So, why am I writing this then? I hear you ask, assuming you’ve bothered to come this far to read a poor review of a film you’re probably never going to watch.
Well, it’s quite simple really. While watching it I had a thought about accents, and just how important they can be to people, for real and for perceived reasons. Because it was a production about Jane Austen, all of the Anglophone characters (one of them was portrayed by Liz Crowther, a legend of the British stage for decades) had the sort of accents that, as the saying used to go, could be used to cut glass. The sort of accent where “girl” would end up sounding more like “gell” (with a hard G), that sort of thing.
The main character was played by Camille Rutherford, speaking as easily in French as she did in English and making my ears prick up just enough to want to know more about her background. And then, at one point she said the word ‘pub’, followed a little later by the word ‘love’, and I knew I needed to look her up!
Hey presto, she may well be a Parisian (or should that be Parisienne, which somehow sounds more glamorous), but Wikiwhatnot says that her father is from the northeast of England. What I love about that is that, even though she is clearly genuinely bilingual, her father’s background definitely informs her accent in very subtle ways (two English words in an entire film). She may well never have loved a pub in the northeast, but her accent will always suggest otherwise.
This puts me in mind of somebody I went to university with (hello Marielle), who speaks English with a very clear Manchester accent and French like she’s spent her entire life in Avignon. It’s all very confusing for a man of little brain.
Of course, having gone this far in my thoughts, I am also considering some of the bilingual booth colleagues I’ve had over the years. Like Camille, sometimes there’s a little hint of their linguistic roots, all masked by language abilities I can only dream of having.
And then, finally, it has got me wondering, When my UK born and bread (not a typo, food is never far from my thoughts) children speak in French, is there a little hint of their own linguistic heritage that shines through? I’ll have to ask them to speak to a perfect stranger in France one day, just to check. Or, perhaps, get them to star in their own film. That would sort them out!
To illustrate this post, I could have simply taken a screenshot of the film poster, or perhaps found a picture of Camille Rutherford, or indeed Jane Austen (she’s out of copyright, so why not?). Instead, I’ve decided to use a couple of photos I took in Chawton earlier this year. Jane Austen would certainly recognise them both (she lived in one, her brother lived in the other), and they’re much more convincing English houses that the one in the film.
Jane Austen’s house in Chawton, Hampshire. Not seen in the film either. There’s a rather nice pub, The Greyfriar, opposite, just in case you’re in the area one day and you’re thirsty and/or hungry.
Thank you for reading.
