What was her problem with Wisley?

My interpretation of the situation was that there was nothing 'wrong' with him, per se, just that he wasn't right for her. Surely you've gone on dates with people who were perfectly 'fine', nothing wrong with them, but they just didn't have that certain something that made them attractive to you. Of course by the end of the film, she was already in love with LeFroy, but this would explain her reaction at the beginning.

I think the screenwriters wanted it to end this way because of how they created Mr.Wisley. He was a compound character. Part of him was based on Mr.Darcy in that they made him the relative of a noblewoman and thus far above Jane's station. The other fact is that the rest of his character and his courting Jane was based on a real event in her life in 1802 with a young man named Harris Bigg-Withers.The Bigg-Withers were a wealthy (but not titled) family who lived in a typically big and beautiful Georgian mansion (Manydown House) on a large Hampshire estate.


When they moved to Hampshire in 1789 they had three daughters and their son, the youngest, thirteen year old Harris. They all became great friends with the Austens and Jane and Cassandra visited there often. (Despite the great difference in wealth, the Austens were considered part of the local gentry and thus acceptable companions). In fact it was at a ball in 1795 given by the Bigg-Withers at Manydown House that Jane first met Tom Lefroy, who was staying with family at nearby Ashe Rectory.

Now jump ahead seven years to the autumn of 1802.Jane is 25 and she and Cassandra are still great friends with the Bigg-Withers family and still visit frequently. Young Harris is now twenty and back from Oxford. Like the film character, Harris was rather shy and awkward. While on a weeklong visit to Manydown House, on December 2nd, Harris proposed matrimony to Jane and she accepted. Unlike the movie, everyone in the Bigg-Withers family was overjoyed at the news and celebrated appropriately that night.

Like the movie, this would give Jane everything a woman was supposed to want in the early 19th century: a husband, wealth, social status, a fine home to be mistress of, a place for Cassandra to live, and financial security for her parents who were getting old. But she came down the next morning and said that though she esteemed and respected Harris, it was not enough. This inferred that she wanted to really love her husband, a strange and radical idea in her time and place. Most women would have seen this as a perfect offer (much less for a penniless 25 year old) and would have jumped at the opportunity. Jane seems to have been ahead of her time in this respect.

They all stayed friends and Harris was later married and had ten children. For Jane it was her last suitor and last chance at marriage and it must have taken a great deal of fortitude for her to say no. In any case, the movie character (Mr.Wisley) is so similar to Harris that it seems the writers just telescoped Jane's two serious suitors into the same timeframe for the sake of the film, but decided to preserve Jane's real response to her second suitor.

This is pretty long for a Message Board reply, but I thought you might find the actual story relevant to the movie and why it ended the way it did.

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He was not the intellectual equal she wanted besides everything else. She was a woman who valued wit over money thus the reason she saw an intellectual equal and friend in Tom. Wisley was not quick witted or charming enough to make him interesting to Jane. He was nice, but he was a "booby" in Jane's words!

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Sometimes its better to be silent and thought a fool - than to speak and remove all doubt...

Wisley came across as a dullard as well as shy. Actually he seemed to be the most realistic character in the film.

Its that man again!!

I think Wisley is there to show how Jane learned about prejudice. Jane judges him unfairly because of the circumstances, because he was "pushed" on her.

-He turns out to have qualities that neither the viewers nor Jane expects
-She incorrectly believes him to be guilty of wrongdoing (the letter).
Both these things are also true of Elizabeth's view of Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice.

So, I think it was meant to show that Jane learned something from this experience, and, although she was never attracted to Mr Wisley, he inspired the character of Mr Darcy as well as Elizabeth's character development in P&P. (To me Wisley seemed much more similar to Mr Darcy than Lefroy did, so I don't know why everyone kept saying Lefroy was the model for Mr Darcy. Lefroy was much more like the cliched "bad boy" character).

Of course we can't know all that was going on Miss Austen's brain (quite a lot, obviously). But in this movie, I think her character is a great gudgeon to refuse to marry Wisley. It's not even as if she was chosing between him and the Irishman, she was choosing between Wisley and penury. Not just for herself, but for her family. Probably it's the Anne Hathaway influence, but I don't like her.

For me, part of the problem was casting Laurie Fox who I just adore. I can't imagine any woman not being able to fall in love with him.