Is it just me, or is everyone rude now? (It's not just me)
The woman, seated a chair or two away at the Sydney Writers' Festival, leaned over to me when the session had finished. She said: 'Do you always fidget, or do you have a particular problem today?'
What? I hadn't been aware that I'd been fidgeting. Perhaps I'd been moving my new knee a little, just to take pleasure in the fact that my leg now works. But the movement would have been minimal. And she was seated a half a metre away.
I'm always discombobulated when someone is rude to me. I think most people are.
Minutes later, I ran into the writer Sydney writer Charlotte Wood. I told her about the nasty comment and how I'd been lost for words.
Well, worse than lost for words. Instead, I'd put on a plummy English accent – why the accent? – and said, 'Madam, if I disturbed you in any way, I do apologise', and then stomped off (to the extent that a man with a new knee can stomp anywhere.)
I asked Charlotte 'how come I was unable to come up with something better?'
'That's nothing,' said Charlotte. 'Someone was having me sign their book, and just as they were leaving, they examined me closely and said: 'So, whose idea was the hair?''
Charlotte is a wordsmith of dazzling skill. Her most recent book was shortlisted for last year's Booker Prize. Reviewers praise her wit. Surely, Charlotte would have come up with a zinger, even if I'd failed to manage one.
Not a bit of it. She reports responding with a nervous half-laugh, a strange surge of shame – maybe the reader is right! - before quickly turning to the next customer in the queue.
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The Advertiser
4 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Australia's enduring love affair with the US is at a critical point
Few stories start in a more compelling way than Ian McEwan's brilliant novel Enduring Love (1997). Several men, strangers to each other, rush across an English field converging on a stricken helium balloon as they try frantically to hold it grounded long enough to free a child cowering in its basket. As the ungainly apparatus is gusted violently aloft during a wind squall, the men suddenly find themselves "treading air", each facing a terrible choice - whether to hang on in the hope their collective weight will bring it down again or let go before rising too high to survive the fall. It might seem rich to describe Australia's umbilical attachment to the United States as an enduring love, but that unanswerable question in the untethered balloon scene feels disturbingly apt. As does the book's title. The bilateral relationship has survived long enough to natural, even definitional. With that "enduring", though, has come less admirable attributes like unbalanced, fawning, and captive. Hence the reckless conservative boast that Australians have fought alongside Americans in every war they've undertaken since 1900. This includes moral, legal, and strategic outrages like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Like McEwan's disparate characters twisting precariously on guy ropes and slaves to untameable forces of physics, the existential question of whether to cling on or let go, is fast becoming existential. Not that the cheerleaders of the AUKUS caucus are awake to it. While the US talks openly of rehabilitating Russia, invading Greenland and seizing the Panama Canal, they mouth terms like strategic alignment, shared values, cooperation and interoperability. In so many ways, McEwan's exquisitely described dilemma seems like a fitting metaphor for this instant. A temporally reflexive metaphor that works, albeit in different ways, for Australia, for Iran, for Israel, and even for those democracies keeping schtum as another American president contemplates a Middle Eastern war. And as Israel reveals its bottomless reserves of military power and lawless vengeance. In short order, Iran must decide if it is to surrender its nuclear enrichment capacities - even for exclusively peaceful domestic purposes like medical isotopes - or face a US aerial bombardment of unimaginable ferocity. Israel must decide, in the same compressed timeframe, if it is to accommodate such assurances - should Donald Trump insist(?) - or fight on condemning Israelis to further carnage and the state itself to perennial insecurity in its region. It is a choice between an unlikely peace and the guarantee of endless war and an ever-enduring hate. The oafish Trump has no plan. He has bought himself a mere fortnight to decide between backing off or pursuing a path he expressly campaigned against. McEwan's well-meaning strangers who've sprinted towards the flailing balloon exhibit some characteristics of the international community. In the nine days since Israel's far-right Netanyahu government began bombing Iran's nuclear sites without warning, a kind of uncoordinated helplessness has taken hold. Those gathered in Canada for the G7 caved instantly to US and Israeli pressure, citing the Jewish state's limitless "right to defend itself". The group called Iran the "principal source of regional instability". While the criticism of Iran is justified, one might have expected the top liberal states to weigh more heavily the authoritative opinions of international legal scholars such as Professor Ben Saul, Challis chair of international law at the University of Sydney and UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter Terrorism. Saul says Israel's claimed legal impunity simply does not apply here. "Israel claims that its attack is necessary to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and using them in the future. The problem is that under international law, a country may only defend itself from an actual or imminent armed attack by another country," wrote Saul in the Guardian. As the rules break down, such facts have become ethereal, prone to dissipating, like so much helium. READ MORE KENNY: It is worth remembering that the trend to American unreliability now so blatant, started more than two decades ago, when fragmentary intelligence was deliberately "sexed up" to look like solid intel ahead of the Iraq invasion. America's "forever wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the attendant abuses of Abu Ghraib and the eventual surrender to the very Taliban it had expelled - signalled a loss of prestige internationally. But they also sparked a crisis at the moral and institutional core of America. The nativist, protectionist, anti-establishment Trump is its indignant progeny. A vulgar up-yours to the compromises of democracy and the checks on executive power by laws, courts, multilateral bodies and international norms. As Hugh White notes in his latest insightful Quarterly Essay, "Hard New World: Our Post-American Future", the nation which had saved democracy, then created and policed a post-war rules-based international order, has gone and is not coming back. Now, an avowed America First isolationist scoffs at such an order (globally and domestically) and ridicules the haughty ethics that had underpinned it. Even last week, Trump arrived at the G7 only to complain that Vladimir Putin should be there too. To bend McEwan's balloon dilemma further, Australia might ask itself a further question: are we the poor sods clinging white-knuckled to guy ropes? Or are we perhaps the panicked child cowering in the basket, too frightened to determine our own survival as a sovereign nation? Few stories start in a more compelling way than Ian McEwan's brilliant novel Enduring Love (1997). Several men, strangers to each other, rush across an English field converging on a stricken helium balloon as they try frantically to hold it grounded long enough to free a child cowering in its basket. As the ungainly apparatus is gusted violently aloft during a wind squall, the men suddenly find themselves "treading air", each facing a terrible choice - whether to hang on in the hope their collective weight will bring it down again or let go before rising too high to survive the fall. It might seem rich to describe Australia's umbilical attachment to the United States as an enduring love, but that unanswerable question in the untethered balloon scene feels disturbingly apt. As does the book's title. The bilateral relationship has survived long enough to natural, even definitional. With that "enduring", though, has come less admirable attributes like unbalanced, fawning, and captive. Hence the reckless conservative boast that Australians have fought alongside Americans in every war they've undertaken since 1900. This includes moral, legal, and strategic outrages like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Like McEwan's disparate characters twisting precariously on guy ropes and slaves to untameable forces of physics, the existential question of whether to cling on or let go, is fast becoming existential. Not that the cheerleaders of the AUKUS caucus are awake to it. While the US talks openly of rehabilitating Russia, invading Greenland and seizing the Panama Canal, they mouth terms like strategic alignment, shared values, cooperation and interoperability. In so many ways, McEwan's exquisitely described dilemma seems like a fitting metaphor for this instant. A temporally reflexive metaphor that works, albeit in different ways, for Australia, for Iran, for Israel, and even for those democracies keeping schtum as another American president contemplates a Middle Eastern war. And as Israel reveals its bottomless reserves of military power and lawless vengeance. In short order, Iran must decide if it is to surrender its nuclear enrichment capacities - even for exclusively peaceful domestic purposes like medical isotopes - or face a US aerial bombardment of unimaginable ferocity. Israel must decide, in the same compressed timeframe, if it is to accommodate such assurances - should Donald Trump insist(?) - or fight on condemning Israelis to further carnage and the state itself to perennial insecurity in its region. It is a choice between an unlikely peace and the guarantee of endless war and an ever-enduring hate. The oafish Trump has no plan. He has bought himself a mere fortnight to decide between backing off or pursuing a path he expressly campaigned against. McEwan's well-meaning strangers who've sprinted towards the flailing balloon exhibit some characteristics of the international community. In the nine days since Israel's far-right Netanyahu government began bombing Iran's nuclear sites without warning, a kind of uncoordinated helplessness has taken hold. Those gathered in Canada for the G7 caved instantly to US and Israeli pressure, citing the Jewish state's limitless "right to defend itself". The group called Iran the "principal source of regional instability". While the criticism of Iran is justified, one might have expected the top liberal states to weigh more heavily the authoritative opinions of international legal scholars such as Professor Ben Saul, Challis chair of international law at the University of Sydney and UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter Terrorism. Saul says Israel's claimed legal impunity simply does not apply here. "Israel claims that its attack is necessary to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and using them in the future. The problem is that under international law, a country may only defend itself from an actual or imminent armed attack by another country," wrote Saul in the Guardian. As the rules break down, such facts have become ethereal, prone to dissipating, like so much helium. READ MORE KENNY: It is worth remembering that the trend to American unreliability now so blatant, started more than two decades ago, when fragmentary intelligence was deliberately "sexed up" to look like solid intel ahead of the Iraq invasion. America's "forever wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the attendant abuses of Abu Ghraib and the eventual surrender to the very Taliban it had expelled - signalled a loss of prestige internationally. But they also sparked a crisis at the moral and institutional core of America. The nativist, protectionist, anti-establishment Trump is its indignant progeny. A vulgar up-yours to the compromises of democracy and the checks on executive power by laws, courts, multilateral bodies and international norms. As Hugh White notes in his latest insightful Quarterly Essay, "Hard New World: Our Post-American Future", the nation which had saved democracy, then created and policed a post-war rules-based international order, has gone and is not coming back. Now, an avowed America First isolationist scoffs at such an order (globally and domestically) and ridicules the haughty ethics that had underpinned it. Even last week, Trump arrived at the G7 only to complain that Vladimir Putin should be there too. To bend McEwan's balloon dilemma further, Australia might ask itself a further question: are we the poor sods clinging white-knuckled to guy ropes? Or are we perhaps the panicked child cowering in the basket, too frightened to determine our own survival as a sovereign nation? Few stories start in a more compelling way than Ian McEwan's brilliant novel Enduring Love (1997). Several men, strangers to each other, rush across an English field converging on a stricken helium balloon as they try frantically to hold it grounded long enough to free a child cowering in its basket. As the ungainly apparatus is gusted violently aloft during a wind squall, the men suddenly find themselves "treading air", each facing a terrible choice - whether to hang on in the hope their collective weight will bring it down again or let go before rising too high to survive the fall. It might seem rich to describe Australia's umbilical attachment to the United States as an enduring love, but that unanswerable question in the untethered balloon scene feels disturbingly apt. As does the book's title. The bilateral relationship has survived long enough to natural, even definitional. With that "enduring", though, has come less admirable attributes like unbalanced, fawning, and captive. Hence the reckless conservative boast that Australians have fought alongside Americans in every war they've undertaken since 1900. This includes moral, legal, and strategic outrages like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Like McEwan's disparate characters twisting precariously on guy ropes and slaves to untameable forces of physics, the existential question of whether to cling on or let go, is fast becoming existential. Not that the cheerleaders of the AUKUS caucus are awake to it. While the US talks openly of rehabilitating Russia, invading Greenland and seizing the Panama Canal, they mouth terms like strategic alignment, shared values, cooperation and interoperability. In so many ways, McEwan's exquisitely described dilemma seems like a fitting metaphor for this instant. A temporally reflexive metaphor that works, albeit in different ways, for Australia, for Iran, for Israel, and even for those democracies keeping schtum as another American president contemplates a Middle Eastern war. And as Israel reveals its bottomless reserves of military power and lawless vengeance. In short order, Iran must decide if it is to surrender its nuclear enrichment capacities - even for exclusively peaceful domestic purposes like medical isotopes - or face a US aerial bombardment of unimaginable ferocity. Israel must decide, in the same compressed timeframe, if it is to accommodate such assurances - should Donald Trump insist(?) - or fight on condemning Israelis to further carnage and the state itself to perennial insecurity in its region. It is a choice between an unlikely peace and the guarantee of endless war and an ever-enduring hate. The oafish Trump has no plan. He has bought himself a mere fortnight to decide between backing off or pursuing a path he expressly campaigned against. McEwan's well-meaning strangers who've sprinted towards the flailing balloon exhibit some characteristics of the international community. In the nine days since Israel's far-right Netanyahu government began bombing Iran's nuclear sites without warning, a kind of uncoordinated helplessness has taken hold. Those gathered in Canada for the G7 caved instantly to US and Israeli pressure, citing the Jewish state's limitless "right to defend itself". The group called Iran the "principal source of regional instability". While the criticism of Iran is justified, one might have expected the top liberal states to weigh more heavily the authoritative opinions of international legal scholars such as Professor Ben Saul, Challis chair of international law at the University of Sydney and UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter Terrorism. Saul says Israel's claimed legal impunity simply does not apply here. "Israel claims that its attack is necessary to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and using them in the future. The problem is that under international law, a country may only defend itself from an actual or imminent armed attack by another country," wrote Saul in the Guardian. As the rules break down, such facts have become ethereal, prone to dissipating, like so much helium. READ MORE KENNY: It is worth remembering that the trend to American unreliability now so blatant, started more than two decades ago, when fragmentary intelligence was deliberately "sexed up" to look like solid intel ahead of the Iraq invasion. America's "forever wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the attendant abuses of Abu Ghraib and the eventual surrender to the very Taliban it had expelled - signalled a loss of prestige internationally. But they also sparked a crisis at the moral and institutional core of America. The nativist, protectionist, anti-establishment Trump is its indignant progeny. A vulgar up-yours to the compromises of democracy and the checks on executive power by laws, courts, multilateral bodies and international norms. As Hugh White notes in his latest insightful Quarterly Essay, "Hard New World: Our Post-American Future", the nation which had saved democracy, then created and policed a post-war rules-based international order, has gone and is not coming back. Now, an avowed America First isolationist scoffs at such an order (globally and domestically) and ridicules the haughty ethics that had underpinned it. Even last week, Trump arrived at the G7 only to complain that Vladimir Putin should be there too. To bend McEwan's balloon dilemma further, Australia might ask itself a further question: are we the poor sods clinging white-knuckled to guy ropes? Or are we perhaps the panicked child cowering in the basket, too frightened to determine our own survival as a sovereign nation? Few stories start in a more compelling way than Ian McEwan's brilliant novel Enduring Love (1997). Several men, strangers to each other, rush across an English field converging on a stricken helium balloon as they try frantically to hold it grounded long enough to free a child cowering in its basket. As the ungainly apparatus is gusted violently aloft during a wind squall, the men suddenly find themselves "treading air", each facing a terrible choice - whether to hang on in the hope their collective weight will bring it down again or let go before rising too high to survive the fall. It might seem rich to describe Australia's umbilical attachment to the United States as an enduring love, but that unanswerable question in the untethered balloon scene feels disturbingly apt. As does the book's title. The bilateral relationship has survived long enough to natural, even definitional. With that "enduring", though, has come less admirable attributes like unbalanced, fawning, and captive. Hence the reckless conservative boast that Australians have fought alongside Americans in every war they've undertaken since 1900. This includes moral, legal, and strategic outrages like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Like McEwan's disparate characters twisting precariously on guy ropes and slaves to untameable forces of physics, the existential question of whether to cling on or let go, is fast becoming existential. Not that the cheerleaders of the AUKUS caucus are awake to it. While the US talks openly of rehabilitating Russia, invading Greenland and seizing the Panama Canal, they mouth terms like strategic alignment, shared values, cooperation and interoperability. In so many ways, McEwan's exquisitely described dilemma seems like a fitting metaphor for this instant. A temporally reflexive metaphor that works, albeit in different ways, for Australia, for Iran, for Israel, and even for those democracies keeping schtum as another American president contemplates a Middle Eastern war. And as Israel reveals its bottomless reserves of military power and lawless vengeance. In short order, Iran must decide if it is to surrender its nuclear enrichment capacities - even for exclusively peaceful domestic purposes like medical isotopes - or face a US aerial bombardment of unimaginable ferocity. Israel must decide, in the same compressed timeframe, if it is to accommodate such assurances - should Donald Trump insist(?) - or fight on condemning Israelis to further carnage and the state itself to perennial insecurity in its region. It is a choice between an unlikely peace and the guarantee of endless war and an ever-enduring hate. The oafish Trump has no plan. He has bought himself a mere fortnight to decide between backing off or pursuing a path he expressly campaigned against. McEwan's well-meaning strangers who've sprinted towards the flailing balloon exhibit some characteristics of the international community. In the nine days since Israel's far-right Netanyahu government began bombing Iran's nuclear sites without warning, a kind of uncoordinated helplessness has taken hold. Those gathered in Canada for the G7 caved instantly to US and Israeli pressure, citing the Jewish state's limitless "right to defend itself". The group called Iran the "principal source of regional instability". While the criticism of Iran is justified, one might have expected the top liberal states to weigh more heavily the authoritative opinions of international legal scholars such as Professor Ben Saul, Challis chair of international law at the University of Sydney and UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter Terrorism. Saul says Israel's claimed legal impunity simply does not apply here. "Israel claims that its attack is necessary to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and using them in the future. The problem is that under international law, a country may only defend itself from an actual or imminent armed attack by another country," wrote Saul in the Guardian. As the rules break down, such facts have become ethereal, prone to dissipating, like so much helium. READ MORE KENNY: It is worth remembering that the trend to American unreliability now so blatant, started more than two decades ago, when fragmentary intelligence was deliberately "sexed up" to look like solid intel ahead of the Iraq invasion. America's "forever wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the attendant abuses of Abu Ghraib and the eventual surrender to the very Taliban it had expelled - signalled a loss of prestige internationally. But they also sparked a crisis at the moral and institutional core of America. The nativist, protectionist, anti-establishment Trump is its indignant progeny. A vulgar up-yours to the compromises of democracy and the checks on executive power by laws, courts, multilateral bodies and international norms. As Hugh White notes in his latest insightful Quarterly Essay, "Hard New World: Our Post-American Future", the nation which had saved democracy, then created and policed a post-war rules-based international order, has gone and is not coming back. Now, an avowed America First isolationist scoffs at such an order (globally and domestically) and ridicules the haughty ethics that had underpinned it. Even last week, Trump arrived at the G7 only to complain that Vladimir Putin should be there too. To bend McEwan's balloon dilemma further, Australia might ask itself a further question: are we the poor sods clinging white-knuckled to guy ropes? Or are we perhaps the panicked child cowering in the basket, too frightened to determine our own survival as a sovereign nation?
West Australian
13 hours ago
- West Australian
Screen Queen TV Reviews: Pernille, Stranded On Honeymoon Island, The Bear, Squid Game S3 & The Gilded Age
Has it ever been harder to be a middle-aged woman? Seriously — it's tough out there. We've got young children to raise, and elderly parents to care for. Add in a bit of perimenopausal rage and honestly — it's a s..t show. And I get it — had I been born a couple of hundred years earlier, there'd be every chance I'd not have made it this far. And had I survived to the ripe old age of 47, I'd be considered positively ancient, hurtling towards the grave. Or being dunked in a village pond, or burned at the stake — or all of the above. So yeah, I guess in relative terms, it's not so bad. But it certainly feels like hard graft as I navigate life in The Sandwich Generation; that group of us born in the mid-to-late 70s and early 80s, stuck raising kids and caring for ageing boomer parents. Maybe that's why I identified so much with this great under-the-radar series. Pernille, or Pørni, as it's known in its country of origin, is a Norwegian comedy/drama all about a woman my age going through it. It originally aired on SBS, but Netflix picked it up and commissioned two more series, and honestly, it's one of the best things I've seen this year. Actor turned writer/director Henriette Steenstrup stars as the eponymous Pørni (pronounced Pernille), a recently divorced social worker raising two teenage girls. She's dealing with the grief of her recently deceased sister while also caring for her sister's son and elderly father, who recently came out as gay. To say her life is a hot mess would be an understatement. And yet, she approaches it all with so much positivity and relatability and grace, that it's literally impossible not to fall in love with this superb series. While you can watch it dubbed in English, I urge you to check out the original-language version — there's something lovely about listening to the lilting Norwegian, a language I mostly associated with grizzly Scandi Noir dramas. This is beautiful, heartwarming television that shot right to my heart. Women of a certain age: you'll feel SEEN. I don't get why so many people had such beef with season three of The Bear. Sure, it didn't have the urgency of those brilliant first two seasons, but in my mind, it was an essential building block for a story reaching crescendo with season four. The clock is ticking — literally in the trailer, which shows a clock counting down the money the team has left before Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) shuts their doors for good — and it's make or break for Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his crew. Seasons three and four were shot back-to-back, and this picks up immediately where we left things, with that review, and Sydney's (Ayo Edebiri) possible departure hanging over their heads. Can't wait to see where it takes us. Your next favourite guilty pleasure is here! This 'MAFS-meets-Survivor' dating series sees newlywed strangers dumped on a deserted island in nothing but their wedding attire — what a concept. This crackers show will have you hooked. Before she was having existential crises over pina coladas at The White Lotus, Carrie Coon was trussed up in a bodice and bustle in this historical series from Downton Abbey creator, Julian Fellowes. It returns this week for its anticipated third season. Consistently enjoyable. It's one of the biggest shows in the world, with an audience in the hundreds of millions. So get ready for literally everyone you know to be talking about the third series of this Korean classic, which wraps up for good. Get ready for one heck of a showdown between Gi-hun (Player 456, played by Lee Jung-jae) and Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) — can't wait.
The Advertiser
13 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Who doesn't love an Austen-tacious rom-com with a modern twist?
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life M, 98 minutes 3 Stars Once again, one of England's best and most popular novelists has a thing or two to answer for. Here we have another romantic comedy for the screen that was inspired by the wonderful books of Jane Austen about village life set in the south of England two centuries ago. It is a charmer. Set in the literary milieu in Paris, it is no surprise to hear bookseller Agathe (Camille Rutherford) tell a customer at Shakespeare and Company that Sense and Sensibility is her favourite Jane Austen read. And to confide that her favourite heroine is Anne Elliot in Persuasion. The fabled English-language bookshop in Paris that has featured in films by Woody Allen and Richard Linklater and more takes another bow. Agathe adores the company of characters in books, but life outside of work for this thirtysomething isn't scintillating. She quite fancies her good friend Felix (Pablo Pauly), but hasn't slept with anyone in two years and struggles with imposter syndrome as she tries her hand at writing fiction. Felix, she says, is a "breadcrumber". Well, if I'm leading women on, he replies, you're reclusive. Not into digital, not into likes on social media. Just not born into the right century. Touché! British-French actress Rutherford is a natural for her role as Agathe. She and Pauly, like most of the actors in this charming comedy of manners set on both sides of the English Channel, are bi-lingual. English suits Agathe's writing style and she wins a residency at the Jane Austen estate. She will spend two weeks deep in the English countryside, working alongside a small group of other writers who have also been selected for assistance with their development. One the day she departs, the Channel crossing isn't especially choppy, but as you might expect, Agathe gets seasick anyway. When her lift at the other end, Oliver (Charlie Anson) shows up in his vintage sports car, she cannot hold it any longer. Anyway, he has unbearable attitude, and he declares his celebrated great-great-great-great aunt overrated. Then his car breaks down and they have to complete their journey in sullen silence, with a lift in an apple cart. Although she's a sophisticated, cultivated Left Bank Parisian, Agathe clearly belongs to the tradition of clumsy and awkward female romantic leads, like Rene Zellweger of the first Bridget Jones film, famously inspired by the works of Jane Austen, and a hugely popular series. Of course, the wider the gulf between the romantic couple, the more fun it is. Agathe thinks Oliver is insufferable and arrogant, while he lets her know he finds her underwhelming. Of course, they will despise each other at the start. Think 10 Things I Hate About You. And so continues the never-ending tit-for-tat between the French and the English. No one besides the English themselves are better at sending themselves up, and the same can be said of the French. For both countries, farce is a national sport. Filmed in France, this charming frothy rom-com is the work of French writer-director, Laura Piani. It's a delicious concoction, a contribution to a genre that we barely see on the cinema screen these days, and hope will one day return. A film like Materialists, a rom-com for these digital times that was released last week, is unusual at the cinema these days. And Notting Hill was a very long time ago. Jane Austen died young and wrote anonymously during her lifetime. Yet her six novels were hugely influential and have had a life of their own on screen. You have to wonder what she would have thought of the many films and series made in her name. As a writer fed up with the gothic and exaggerated romanticism in popular literature in her time, she would have liked the humour mixed with realism, even if it couldn't match her incisive, comic insight into the absurdities of ordinary daily life. There is a touching moment at the end of Jane Austen Wrecked My Life that has a serious bit of advice for the wary and the uncertain, when a well-known American documentary filmmaker appears in a cameo, reading a poem about letting life in. It hints at a little more than froth and farce and is a good note to end on. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life M, 98 minutes 3 Stars Once again, one of England's best and most popular novelists has a thing or two to answer for. Here we have another romantic comedy for the screen that was inspired by the wonderful books of Jane Austen about village life set in the south of England two centuries ago. It is a charmer. Set in the literary milieu in Paris, it is no surprise to hear bookseller Agathe (Camille Rutherford) tell a customer at Shakespeare and Company that Sense and Sensibility is her favourite Jane Austen read. And to confide that her favourite heroine is Anne Elliot in Persuasion. The fabled English-language bookshop in Paris that has featured in films by Woody Allen and Richard Linklater and more takes another bow. Agathe adores the company of characters in books, but life outside of work for this thirtysomething isn't scintillating. She quite fancies her good friend Felix (Pablo Pauly), but hasn't slept with anyone in two years and struggles with imposter syndrome as she tries her hand at writing fiction. Felix, she says, is a "breadcrumber". Well, if I'm leading women on, he replies, you're reclusive. Not into digital, not into likes on social media. Just not born into the right century. Touché! British-French actress Rutherford is a natural for her role as Agathe. She and Pauly, like most of the actors in this charming comedy of manners set on both sides of the English Channel, are bi-lingual. English suits Agathe's writing style and she wins a residency at the Jane Austen estate. She will spend two weeks deep in the English countryside, working alongside a small group of other writers who have also been selected for assistance with their development. One the day she departs, the Channel crossing isn't especially choppy, but as you might expect, Agathe gets seasick anyway. When her lift at the other end, Oliver (Charlie Anson) shows up in his vintage sports car, she cannot hold it any longer. Anyway, he has unbearable attitude, and he declares his celebrated great-great-great-great aunt overrated. Then his car breaks down and they have to complete their journey in sullen silence, with a lift in an apple cart. Although she's a sophisticated, cultivated Left Bank Parisian, Agathe clearly belongs to the tradition of clumsy and awkward female romantic leads, like Rene Zellweger of the first Bridget Jones film, famously inspired by the works of Jane Austen, and a hugely popular series. Of course, the wider the gulf between the romantic couple, the more fun it is. Agathe thinks Oliver is insufferable and arrogant, while he lets her know he finds her underwhelming. Of course, they will despise each other at the start. Think 10 Things I Hate About You. And so continues the never-ending tit-for-tat between the French and the English. No one besides the English themselves are better at sending themselves up, and the same can be said of the French. For both countries, farce is a national sport. Filmed in France, this charming frothy rom-com is the work of French writer-director, Laura Piani. It's a delicious concoction, a contribution to a genre that we barely see on the cinema screen these days, and hope will one day return. A film like Materialists, a rom-com for these digital times that was released last week, is unusual at the cinema these days. And Notting Hill was a very long time ago. Jane Austen died young and wrote anonymously during her lifetime. Yet her six novels were hugely influential and have had a life of their own on screen. You have to wonder what she would have thought of the many films and series made in her name. As a writer fed up with the gothic and exaggerated romanticism in popular literature in her time, she would have liked the humour mixed with realism, even if it couldn't match her incisive, comic insight into the absurdities of ordinary daily life. There is a touching moment at the end of Jane Austen Wrecked My Life that has a serious bit of advice for the wary and the uncertain, when a well-known American documentary filmmaker appears in a cameo, reading a poem about letting life in. It hints at a little more than froth and farce and is a good note to end on. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life M, 98 minutes 3 Stars Once again, one of England's best and most popular novelists has a thing or two to answer for. Here we have another romantic comedy for the screen that was inspired by the wonderful books of Jane Austen about village life set in the south of England two centuries ago. It is a charmer. Set in the literary milieu in Paris, it is no surprise to hear bookseller Agathe (Camille Rutherford) tell a customer at Shakespeare and Company that Sense and Sensibility is her favourite Jane Austen read. And to confide that her favourite heroine is Anne Elliot in Persuasion. The fabled English-language bookshop in Paris that has featured in films by Woody Allen and Richard Linklater and more takes another bow. Agathe adores the company of characters in books, but life outside of work for this thirtysomething isn't scintillating. She quite fancies her good friend Felix (Pablo Pauly), but hasn't slept with anyone in two years and struggles with imposter syndrome as she tries her hand at writing fiction. Felix, she says, is a "breadcrumber". Well, if I'm leading women on, he replies, you're reclusive. Not into digital, not into likes on social media. Just not born into the right century. Touché! British-French actress Rutherford is a natural for her role as Agathe. She and Pauly, like most of the actors in this charming comedy of manners set on both sides of the English Channel, are bi-lingual. English suits Agathe's writing style and she wins a residency at the Jane Austen estate. She will spend two weeks deep in the English countryside, working alongside a small group of other writers who have also been selected for assistance with their development. One the day she departs, the Channel crossing isn't especially choppy, but as you might expect, Agathe gets seasick anyway. When her lift at the other end, Oliver (Charlie Anson) shows up in his vintage sports car, she cannot hold it any longer. Anyway, he has unbearable attitude, and he declares his celebrated great-great-great-great aunt overrated. Then his car breaks down and they have to complete their journey in sullen silence, with a lift in an apple cart. Although she's a sophisticated, cultivated Left Bank Parisian, Agathe clearly belongs to the tradition of clumsy and awkward female romantic leads, like Rene Zellweger of the first Bridget Jones film, famously inspired by the works of Jane Austen, and a hugely popular series. Of course, the wider the gulf between the romantic couple, the more fun it is. Agathe thinks Oliver is insufferable and arrogant, while he lets her know he finds her underwhelming. Of course, they will despise each other at the start. Think 10 Things I Hate About You. And so continues the never-ending tit-for-tat between the French and the English. No one besides the English themselves are better at sending themselves up, and the same can be said of the French. For both countries, farce is a national sport. Filmed in France, this charming frothy rom-com is the work of French writer-director, Laura Piani. It's a delicious concoction, a contribution to a genre that we barely see on the cinema screen these days, and hope will one day return. A film like Materialists, a rom-com for these digital times that was released last week, is unusual at the cinema these days. And Notting Hill was a very long time ago. Jane Austen died young and wrote anonymously during her lifetime. Yet her six novels were hugely influential and have had a life of their own on screen. You have to wonder what she would have thought of the many films and series made in her name. As a writer fed up with the gothic and exaggerated romanticism in popular literature in her time, she would have liked the humour mixed with realism, even if it couldn't match her incisive, comic insight into the absurdities of ordinary daily life. There is a touching moment at the end of Jane Austen Wrecked My Life that has a serious bit of advice for the wary and the uncertain, when a well-known American documentary filmmaker appears in a cameo, reading a poem about letting life in. It hints at a little more than froth and farce and is a good note to end on. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life M, 98 minutes 3 Stars Once again, one of England's best and most popular novelists has a thing or two to answer for. Here we have another romantic comedy for the screen that was inspired by the wonderful books of Jane Austen about village life set in the south of England two centuries ago. It is a charmer. Set in the literary milieu in Paris, it is no surprise to hear bookseller Agathe (Camille Rutherford) tell a customer at Shakespeare and Company that Sense and Sensibility is her favourite Jane Austen read. And to confide that her favourite heroine is Anne Elliot in Persuasion. The fabled English-language bookshop in Paris that has featured in films by Woody Allen and Richard Linklater and more takes another bow. Agathe adores the company of characters in books, but life outside of work for this thirtysomething isn't scintillating. She quite fancies her good friend Felix (Pablo Pauly), but hasn't slept with anyone in two years and struggles with imposter syndrome as she tries her hand at writing fiction. Felix, she says, is a "breadcrumber". Well, if I'm leading women on, he replies, you're reclusive. Not into digital, not into likes on social media. Just not born into the right century. Touché! British-French actress Rutherford is a natural for her role as Agathe. She and Pauly, like most of the actors in this charming comedy of manners set on both sides of the English Channel, are bi-lingual. English suits Agathe's writing style and she wins a residency at the Jane Austen estate. She will spend two weeks deep in the English countryside, working alongside a small group of other writers who have also been selected for assistance with their development. One the day she departs, the Channel crossing isn't especially choppy, but as you might expect, Agathe gets seasick anyway. When her lift at the other end, Oliver (Charlie Anson) shows up in his vintage sports car, she cannot hold it any longer. Anyway, he has unbearable attitude, and he declares his celebrated great-great-great-great aunt overrated. Then his car breaks down and they have to complete their journey in sullen silence, with a lift in an apple cart. Although she's a sophisticated, cultivated Left Bank Parisian, Agathe clearly belongs to the tradition of clumsy and awkward female romantic leads, like Rene Zellweger of the first Bridget Jones film, famously inspired by the works of Jane Austen, and a hugely popular series. Of course, the wider the gulf between the romantic couple, the more fun it is. Agathe thinks Oliver is insufferable and arrogant, while he lets her know he finds her underwhelming. Of course, they will despise each other at the start. Think 10 Things I Hate About You. And so continues the never-ending tit-for-tat between the French and the English. No one besides the English themselves are better at sending themselves up, and the same can be said of the French. For both countries, farce is a national sport. Filmed in France, this charming frothy rom-com is the work of French writer-director, Laura Piani. It's a delicious concoction, a contribution to a genre that we barely see on the cinema screen these days, and hope will one day return. A film like Materialists, a rom-com for these digital times that was released last week, is unusual at the cinema these days. And Notting Hill was a very long time ago. Jane Austen died young and wrote anonymously during her lifetime. Yet her six novels were hugely influential and have had a life of their own on screen. You have to wonder what she would have thought of the many films and series made in her name. As a writer fed up with the gothic and exaggerated romanticism in popular literature in her time, she would have liked the humour mixed with realism, even if it couldn't match her incisive, comic insight into the absurdities of ordinary daily life. There is a touching moment at the end of Jane Austen Wrecked My Life that has a serious bit of advice for the wary and the uncertain, when a well-known American documentary filmmaker appears in a cameo, reading a poem about letting life in. It hints at a little more than froth and farce and is a good note to end on.
