Costume comedy from filmmaker Whit Stillman (Last Days of Disco), based on Jane Austen's Lady Susan, starring Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale and Stephen Fry.
Set in the opulent drawing rooms of 18th century English society, Love and Friendship focuses on the machinations of a beautiful widow, Lady Susan Vernon (Beckinsale), who, while waiting for social chatter about a personal indiscretion to pass, takes up temporary residence at her in-laws' estate. While there, the intelligent, flirtatious, and amusingly egotistical Lady Vernon is determined to be a matchmaker for her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark, The Falling) - and herself too, naturally. She enlists the assistance of her old friend Alicia (Sevigny), but two particularly handsome suitors complicate her orchestrations.
Whit Stillman’s films to date have been populated by measured, mannered, often upper class folks jostling for position as they climb the rungs of society. Withering looks, poisonous tongues, expert manipulation and brutal betrayal propel efforts such as The Last Days of Disco, so it comes as little surprise that Stillman proves adept at a comic Jane Austen adaptation here with Love and Friendship.
Full review[Stillman] takes the inherent sophistication of Austen’s worldview and introduces just the right note of sly, self-deflating mockery.
Full reviewBeckinsale and Stillman do their inspiration proud: Finally, a Jane Austen movie that's fresh and deliciously rotten at the same time.
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It's the Whit Stillman movie that some of us have been waiting a long time for, and also a Jane Austen movie that goes some way toward correcting the record of dull and dutiful cinematic Janeism.
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Beckinsale is a hoot to watch as a character with no redeemable qualities, except for her cunning ability to get what she wants.
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This witty black comedy of manners and machinations feels like it has more in common with the works of Oscar Wilde and Wes Anderson than Sense & Sensibility.
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Remains buoyant through most of its short running time but lacks the stirring emotional hooks found in the best Austen works, on the page as well as the screen.
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