How ‘Becoming Jane’ Paved the Way for ‘Sanditon’ on PBS

When Sanditon premiered on Masterpiece on PBS this winter, it reminded me of only two entries into the Jane Austen canon of films. One was 1999’s radical adaptation of Mansfield Park, a film that fused facts about the real Jane Austen onto a candidly sensual exploration of the novel. The other was a perfectly pleasant 2007 Jane Austen biopic called Becoming Jane, which is now streaming on HBO.

That’s because — spoiler alert — both Sanditon and Becoming Jane trade in happily ever after for the harsh reality of heartache. In fact, I can’t really imagine Sanditon existing without Becoming Jane because otherwise it would be unfathomable that there could be a Jane Austen story with an unhappy ending.

Becoming Jane tries to bring the young Jane Austen to life. As played by Anne Hathaway, Jane is an ambitious young writer, dedicated to her craft and uninterested in marriage. However, her world turns upside down when she meets charismatic law student Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy). He challenges her to push herself as a writer, something which causes them to bicker before realizing they are in love. The two intend upon eloping together, but then Jane discovers that Tom is sending every penny his uncle gives him to his family in Ireland. If they wed, Tom will be cut off, which will be the ruin of his family. Unable to let him do this — and understanding that dooming Tom’s family would eventually ruin their union — Jane refuses him. She later meets him again 20 years later when she is a successful author and he the father of one of her fans.

Now Becoming Jane is a sort of fairy tale version of Jane’s life, but there are elements of truth to it. Jane Austen did have a flirtation with Tom Lefroy and even as it seemed in her letters that they might be heading for a union, the romance is cut off. Lefroy married a wealthier woman, thus securing his and his family’s fortunes. Since Austen was working on the first draft of Pride & Prejudice at this time, her flirtation with Lefroy is considered the inspiration for the Darcy/Lizzie romance.

But hardly any of Jane Austen’s novels dare give her heroines anything akin to her fate — unless we’re talking about Marianne’s doomed love affair with Willoughby in Sense & Sensibility. Austen’s last completed novel, Persuasion, toys with the idea of rekindling a long lost romantic flame, but that’s it.

Jane Austen had only written a small amount of Sanditon prior to her death, but it was clear that she had ambitions to push herself like never before. She was writing not about landed gentry, but an upwardly mobile business class. Georgiana Lambe is Austen’s first major character of color, an heiress. So when Pride & Prejudice alum Andrew Davies set out to adapt Sanditon, he made the assumption that Austen was attempting to show a more modern, accurate, and candid account of life in 1817. In his estimation, that included sex, but more profoundly, heartbreak.

While it’s true that writer Andrew Davies intended for the show to continue past Season 1, the ending of Sanditon Season 1 leaves Rose Wiliams’s Charlotte Heywood in a similar position as Jane Austen was in real life — or the fictitious Jane is pushed into in Becoming Jane. After Charlotte realizes that she and Sidney Parker (Theo James) are in love together, their happiness is shattered with Sidney is forced to marry a wealthy widow to secure his family’s financial future.

While fans may not be contented with Sanditon‘s honesty, star Rose Williams was. When Decider spoke to Williams in February, she said, “I personally quite like [the ending] because I think it reflects real life. I like the fact that, in the end, the marriage that occurs, the marriage that is forced upon Sidney is the marriage with Eliza because of money. And what we normally see is women having to marry for money or the marriage is forced upon the woman. But in this case, the marriage is forced upon the man, and the young woman is the one that can go off and live her life.”

In Becoming Jane, Jane loses her chance with Tom Lefroy, but is free to become one of the most important novelists in history. Given that, maybe Sanditon fans can imagine a similarly powerful fate for Charlotte Heywood.

Becoming Jane is streaming on HBO Now and HBO Go. You can stream Sanditon on the Masterpiece Prime Video Channel or PBS Passport.

Where to stream Becoming Jane

Where to stream Sanditon