Jane Austen Wrecked My Life 2025

Agathe is a French bookseller who works at Shakespeare and Company in Paris and lives with her sister and her sister’s young son. She cycles everywhere, as she has been nervous in cars since her parents were killed in a car accident in which she was injured. She is very close to her co-worker and best friend Félix.

One evening, Agathe is inspired to write the beginning of a romance novel in English, after seeing a man’s face at the bottom of her sake cup in a Chinese restaurant. Félix reads her work and secretly sends it to the Jane Austen Residency, a two-week writing retreat held in England. When they accept her, Agathe reluctantly lets Félix drive her to the Channel ferry. As she is about to board, they kiss and she departs.

Oliver, a distant descendant of Jane Austen’s, picks Agathe up at the ferry terminal in England. The Residency is hosted by his elderly parents at their mansion. En route, his car breaks down and they have to spend the night in the car. Agathe insults him in French and he surprises when he informs her he is fluent in French. The next morning they are rescued by an apple-cart. At the retreat, Agathe and Oliver develop a connection, although she originally found him arrogant and haughty. She leaves messages for Félix telling him of her excitement at the kiss, but he fails to contact her. Agathe suffers from writer’s block, so does not write anything during her stay at the Retreat. As she and Oliver grow closer, they go to a pub and flirt drunkenly. Back at the mansion, he puts her to bed and covers her with a blanket before departing.

The next morning, Agathe wakes to find Félix has arrived to accompany her to the Residency’s annual ball, in period costume. At the ball, she dances with him and then with Oliver, before Félix cuts in again. Agathe and Félix sleep together, but she tells him the next morning that they cannot start a relationship simply because they are lonely, and sends him back to France. She cannot face the prospect of reading her work to the other authors, as she still has not written anything more at the retreat, and leaves early the next morning.

Oliver drives Agathe to the ferry and they part disconsolately; she confesses her writer’s block, and he tells her that ivy and plants need ruins to make them beautiful, encouraging her to find the ruins in her life. Back in France, Agathe decides to spend time at her parents’ vacation home, which she had been unwilling to visit since their deaths. Inspired, she finishes her novel and reconnects (platonically) with Félix. The novel is accepted by an English publisher, and she sends a copy to Oliver, saying that she has found her ruins.

One evening, as she hosts a poetry reading, she sees Oliver at the back of the crowd. As the poem ends, they step outside, and kiss for the first time.