Love and Friendship is so full of beautiful clothes that I kept forgetting that there was an actual movie involved. This being said, there is a movie, and it’s delightful.
Love and Friendship is an adaptation of the novella, Lady Susan, by Jane Austen (I reviewed it here). Austen wrote the book early in her life and doesn’t seem to have planned to publish it. The movie retains the novella’s charms (a delightfully wicked protagonist who shocks everyone around her, including the reader/viewer, and more or less gets away with it all) and its weaknesses (a slight and sometimes confusing story that lacks the emotional weight and tight structure of Austen’s published novels).
Love and Friendship relates a small portion of the havoc wreaked by Lady Susan, who is played with devastating aplomb by Kate Beckinsale. I’ve never been Kate’s biggest fan, but she shines as Lady Susan. I believe the key to her success is the character’s utter and absolute lack of self-knowledge. In her mind, Lady Susan is the heroine of her story, and Kate never lets that supreme self-confidence and self-regard falter for even a moment.
Lady Susan is a widow with a marriageable daughter. Lady Susan has a married lover, and Lady Susan would find a rich husband for herself to be a potential inconvenience, although she grants that it may be a financial necessity. However, if she can marry her daughter, Frederica (the adorable Morfydd Clark) off to a rich guy, then Lady Susan will be rich by association. In the space of a 90-minute long movie, Lady Susan manages to break up a marriage, abuse the heck out of her “Ladies’ Companion,” flirt madly with a hot young guy, try to force her daughter to marry a older and even richer guy, cause all kinds of marital problems for her BFF (played by Chloe Sevigny), and wear a succession of dresses from widow’s black to fire engine red.
People who have some familiarity with Austen but who have not read Lady Susan will be surprised by many elements of the film. The language is pure Austen, but naughtier. Lady Susan says terrible things constantly with no particular awareness that she’s saying terrible things. Of her companion, she explains, “As there’s friendship involved, I’m sure that paying her wages would be offensive to us both.” Of her BFF’s husband, she says, “What a mistake you made in marrying that man! Too old to be governable, too young to die.” Lady Susan is the queen of manipulation, and she is ever the dumper and never the dumpee. And unlike all of Austen’s other heroines, she does not learn a single moral lesson or change even a bit – why should she, when she is, in her own eyes, pretty much perfect?
The delicious horribleness of Lady Susan is softened somewhat by the fact that almost everyone around her is charming and kind, and they don’t suffer too much in the long run from her machinations. Tom Bennett, as Sir James Martin, steals the movie entirely as the man Lady Susan has selected for Frederica. Austen had a wonderful talent for clueless characters who babble for pages on end – Mrs. Elton in Emma, Miss Bates, also from Emma (poor Emma, it’s wonder she didn’t take to swigging laudanum out of a bottle) and of course Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice). Sir James Martin is so unrelentingly inane yet cheerful that the movie is forced to screech to a halt periodically during his speeches out of sheer respect: “Oh yes! Very good! Advanced agricultural methods! Yes, every day I say to my steward, I say, ‘Good morning Collins, what advanced agricultural methods are we using today?”
Structurally this movie is pretty messy (although so is the novella), and it whizzes by from location to location and back again with such a large and intertwined cast of characters that the director helpfully labels them when they first appear. This suits the novella beautifully, since the novella itself was a madcap whirl of lots of places and characters and mayhem wrapped up all at once (the movie gives the story a similar, but better paced, ending). Those accustomed to Austen mini-series will be surprised at how little substance there is to the story and how quickly it unfolds. If the typical Austen story is a three-course meal, this story is a chocolate truffle, but who doesn’t like a chocolate truffle? The dialogue is Austen, but the plot is a Shakespearean comedy.
And again, I say, LOOK AT THESE CLOTHES! So shiny! We wants them, Precious!
Love & Friendship is in theatres now, and you can find tickets (US) at Fandango and Moviefone.
This was such a fun movie! I’ve long been a fan of the Whit Stillman (the director), whose first film had quite a bit in common with Mansfield Park. The characters even discuss it at one point. And Lady Susan is one of my favorites of her juvenalia (second only to Love and Freindship, which is a wonder of hilarious satire). I agree with you that the costumes were stunning and Beckinsale played the character perfectly. I had not been a fan of her Emma many years ago, but Lady Susan was a much better fit for her.
You’re absolutely right. The costumes are fabulous. But I do think the audience for this movie is extremely small. It does not include, IMO, the average romance reader, but people who love Austen and those who love history because they would get a lot of the jokes. Included also would be people who get dry humor, especially English humor. I gave the movie a B and my sister gave it a C- (she thought it was slow and much ado about very little), so beware. A little.
The costumes are lovely – actually saw the real ones (Including the purple dress) on display last weekend in Hollywood at the Dome. The dresses didn’t seem as small as I would have imagined, thankfully.
Demi! Why didn’t you….acquire…. the purple one for Carrie?
My friends and I loved this movies. It was so funny. I want to see it again as I know I missed some of the jokes from ppl laughing.
Just saw this tonight and loved it! The costumes are amazingly gorgeous, as are the settings. Plenty of witty banter and quotable lines thank to Sir James – “Churchill! That’s how it’s pronounced, all one word?” True, the plot is twisty, and the ending felt a little abrupt, but I still enjoyed it. Lots of humor (yay British wit!) and some recognizable romance tropes. Kate Beckinsale was great, and I was impressed with Chloe Sevingy too!
My friends and I saw this movie together and I agree with Theresa — we missed some things because we were laughing so hard. I also agree with Carrie that it is a bit of a mess and sometimes hard to follow in terms of plotting. But SO funny.
PS. I read an interview with Tom Bennett, who absolutely steals the show as the dunderhead Sir James Martin. Apparently the director-writer (whose name is escaping me) kept writing in extra scenes for Sir James and they filmed them at the last minute. The “little green balls” scene, and my favorite, the 12 Commandments, were written and added in so that we could get more of Sir James. What a happy idiot!
My husband and I saw this at a Sunday matinee, & the theatre was filled with 70 year olds! It was funny, we are in our 50s, and we were obviously the youngest people there. We always go to movies at around this time, and often we are the only people in the theatre. It shows there is an audience for movies that aren’t the obvious blockbusters (although i can like those too.)
My face hurt from laughing so hard at the end of this movie and I adored Sir James. I finally realized I recognized him from Family Tree, where he’s also hilarious. I adored the costumes, which were a nice change from the empire look in so many Austen films. They did some nicely subtle things with the mourning progression (back to purples to bright colors), with Lady Susan’s lack of jewelry, and age appropriate hair styles. I’m not a clothing expert, but the purple dress is actually the only one I really questioned as I’ve never seen that kind of net overlay. It was gorgeous though. I’ve not read the original, but loved this film.
I want to see this movie, unfortunately the closest theater where it’s playing is a bit of a haul.
Drove 75 miles to see this and enjoyed it very much (got a free poster too). I’d like to see some Georgette Heyer novels brought to the big screen. Listening to audio-books is almost, but not quite, as good, cuz of the costumes and scenery
I’m so very tempted to go see it in a theatre, but I know we’re going to want to re-watch it, so I’ve pre-ordered it on Prime. I’ve looked everywhere for a release date, but no luck thus far.
Absolutely agreed on the costumes. My favorite dress above is the lavender one in the last pic. I would watch this for the clothes alone.
Saw this in the late morning showing, 11:20. My husband was the only man in the audience of “mature” women. I agree with Theresa that a second seeing is a necessity, not only for the dialogue but also for familiarity with the characters, given that it hops back and forth so much.
Twenty years ago would Colin Firth have been Sir James and Hugh Grant, Reginald?
This was absolutely hilarious. Lady Susan is definitely one of those wicked persons you can’t help but root for.
Yes the movie has some sparkly moments but it also has some major flaws that I put down to it being more about Whit Stillman’s take on Austen than on it being authentically Austen. I heard Whit Stillman more than I heard Jane Austen. As a Regency drawing room comedy it is fairly pleasant, but if you love Austen’s works and read them over dozens of times, you might be let down.
On the plus side was Kate Beckinsale’s performance and the costumes, which were Oscar worthy. On the minus side were the roles of Sir James and Reginald. In the case of Sir James it was the writing and directing – he was not a clown or a dolt – in the book, he is not even as bad as Robert Ferrars or Mr. Rushworth. What was the point? To go for some obvious lowbrow humor? Yes he was funny, but Austen? No.. Reginald – I think it was the actor. He didn’t have the spirit and the verve of Austen’s Reginald. And Chloe Sevigny was also a very poor choice. I got the feeling it was more about Whit Stillman liking her personally than her being right for the role. Stephen Fry on the other hand was a good pick, but underused.
For some reason, I’m having trouble posting comments on this site.
Anyway Love and Friendship is it’s own book written by Jane Austen about the same time she wrote Lady Susan. Why not just call this Lady Susan since it seems more based on that Love and Friendship? Very confused on all of this.
My guess is that Whit Stillman chose Love and Friendship over Lady Susan because the title better fits the pattern of Jane Austen novels (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility). It’s the same reason the British comedy Blackadder went with titles like Dish and Dishonesty and Ink and Incapability in its Georgian-set Blackadder the Third series.
I can’t wait to see this with – get this! – my husband who said, and I quote, “That looks really funny. I’ll see it with you.” All the years of not-so-subliminal P&P has paid off.
I read somewhere else that it was a marketing decision to call the movie “Love and Friendship” because “Lady Susan” didn’t really communicate anything. But its true that for people who know Austen’s juvenile works and her story “Love and Freindship”, there was some confusion. (Also, as an aside, the original title of “Northanger Abbey” was “Susan – more confusion!)
I liked the film but didn’t love it. The cast for the most part was very good. I figured Frederica would end up with who she did, but wanted someone better for her. The film had such an abrupt ending I was left with an “is that it?” feeling.
The costumes though. Sigh. It was worth the price of admission just for the costumes.