Love and Frienship

Lady Susan was both Jane Austen's first big novel and her last; she wrote it in her teens, but it wasn't published until over 50 years after her death. To make things weirder, director/writer Whit Stillman's film version, Love and Friendship, takes its title from an earlier Austen work (though it was spelled Love and Freindship).

The Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale), recently widowed, is "the most accomplished flirt in all of England." She stays with her sister-in-law, Catherine (Emma Greenwell), until her latest scandal blows over. There, she hopes to arrange a match for her daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark), and one for herself. Her match for Frederica, Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), is a babbling doofus. Frederica's eyes are on Catherine's brother, Sir Reginald DeCourcey (Xavier Samuel), and so are her mother's. Like any Austen piece, a comedy of manners ensues.

The film emphasizes the comedy, instead of the romantic, in romantic comedy. The opening scene, set to Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, has Lady Susan and Frederica depart their prior, blubbering hosts, for the in-laws. The characters get a title card introducing themselves. A few cast members over-act unlike any Austen adaptation before. There's Lady Manwaring (Jenn Murray), wife of Lady Susan's prior fling, who acts like a spoiled child. Sir James, meanwhile, is such a doofus that you love him and hate him.

If only Bennett got to play Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice...

The Lady Susan gets her own paragraph. Beckinsale plays her as a desperate Mrs. Robinson. She wants anyone rich enough for her and Frederica. But she repulses people due to her elitism. And yet, she charms the audience with her sharp wit and romantic desperation. She's the kind of character whose actions you condemn, but her social situation you cannot. The credits plug its novelization, "in which [she] is vindicated."

Love and Friendship, like any Austen adaptation, is well-dressed, well-designed and well-photographed. But this isn't a conventional Austen adaptation. It's more Tom Jones than Gone with the Wind. It makes for a decent 92 minutes of silly period comedy.