She was the eldest of five daughters and agreeable in appearance, if a bit plain, with sly gunmetal eyes veiled behind a tumble of otherwise innocent ringlets. Two of her sisters were married, and while she had contemplated her share of viable suitors, her eternal fascination with the alluringly unsuitable had not yet allowed for a proper match. As she paced the garret, however, it wasn't her wobbly social status that engaged her unwed mind.

This particular young lady was also a film critic, you see, intending to convey her observations regarding "Becoming Jane," a semi-fictionalized tale recounting an amorous interlude in the life of novelist Jane Austen that perhaps laid the foundation for "Pride and Prejudice," one of literature's most adored works. "But will I," she fretted, "be able to do justice to both this enchanting movie as well as its venerated muse?"

Naturally she felt a casual kinship with the august Ms. Austen, both of them independent and relatively sensible romantics earning their keep through the merging of words rather than relying upon the financial refuge of a husband. Alas, the similarities ended there, as one deftly wielded irony in keen observation of societal mores, while the other prattled incessantly about cinema and other pop-culture nonsense.

Set around 1795, just before the close of the Georgian era, "Becoming Jane" features radiant Anne Hathaway ("The Devil Wears Prada") as 20-year-old Jane Austen, who finds time to put pen to paper amidst the cheery hubbub of her Hampshire family, headed by a supportive preacher father (James Cromwell, unfailingly essential) and an anxious mother (the great Julie Walters from "Billy Elliot") who longs for Jane to secure a fiscally advantageous union ("Affection is desirable; money is absolutely indispensable"). This pitiless demand on the heart of a woman is a theme that resonates through Ms. Austen's oeuvre, though her happiest characters invariably marry not for money, but for love.

In many narratives, it's the introduction of an interloper that leaves the whole lot topsy-turvy, and "Becoming Jane" is no different. As played by the charismatic James McAvoy ("The Last King of Scotland"), Tom Lefroy, an aspiring lawyer with a conditionally benevolent uncle (the late Ian Richardson in his final role), meets Jane while banished to the English countryside (embodied here by pastoral Ireland) because of his scandalous ways. The film portrays their relationship as films often do, with an initially contentious dislike masking an ardent ember that needs only the slightest puff of oxygen to truly ignite.

Predictably, another eligible gentleman desires Jane's hand, and the surprisingly sympathetic Wisley (Laurence Fox) has money - due to clucking dowager aunt Dame Maggie Smith - where the passionate Lefroy does not. But it certainly wouldn't be fitting if Jane herself didn't possess the defiant qualities of her beloved heroines, whom she describes as obtaining, "after a little bit of trouble, all that they desire."

"Oh, I desperately hope our weekly's dear readers understand that ‘Becoming Jane' is mostly supposition," cried the film critic. Jane's prolonged cinematic entanglement with Lefroy - he's widely regarded as the model for Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice" - is conjectured from a mere week's worth of correspondence between Ms. Austen and her sister. But the flurry of screen adaptations of Austen novels in the mid 1990s ("Persuasion" being the most perfect, the "Emma"-based "Clueless" being the most inspired) proved to be so successful that it's little wonder that one might devise a way to further milk theatrical liberties from this cash cow.

Taken as simple storytelling, however, she found "Becoming Jane" to be satisfying and honest, that summer's quintessential "chick flick," as those sorts of lady-centric amusements were now known. Though the entire cast is almost implausibly attractive - especially Ms. Hathaway, with her milky skin and plump, rosy mouth - the characters are refreshingly dimensional in their actions and the pull between the lovers is palpable, a necessity when being persuaded by admittedly unsophisticated dramatic conceits.

Our film critic friend was not unaware of the poignant truth concerning the unfairly curtailed life of Jane Austen, who died at the age of 41, her solitary writer's existence belied by the swooning romance in her novels. This was perhaps the ultimate irony of Ms. Austen, so enamored of wry incongruity and boldly unwilling to follow the cynical advice found in her earliest novel, the posthumously published "Northanger Abbey": "A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

"Becoming Jane"(PG-13), directed by Julian Jarrold, is now playing at various and sundry moving-picture exhibition halls.