Love and Friendship

Kate Beckinsale

Whit Stillman's Love and Friendship, an adaptation of Jane Austen's Lady Susan, proves to be a largely amenable match of the two auteurs. Stillman is particularly helped by his leading lady, Kate Beckinsale, who gives a full blooded performance that stands in marked contrast to the overly prim Austen heroines, I'm thinking of you Greer Garson, that have drained the life out of previous Austen adaptations. I've been a Beckinsale fan since Cold Comfort Farm, but feel she has been underutilized in Hollywood. Here, she provides enough waspish malice to enliven a dozen period films. Since Stillman's camera is largely static picturing the admittedly gorgeous décor and costumes, Beckinsale's performance gives the film a welcome jolt of visceral excitement. 

Stillman tries to recapture the chemistry of his Last Days of Disco by reuniting Beckinsale with Chloe Sevigny, but Sevigny can't quite handle the period dialogue and the twosome's bitchy asides are a bit wanting. Generally, the cast is up to snuff with Tom Bennett a particular delight as the moronic Sir James Martin.

I must confess that Austen's reputation has always left me mystified. Her fans seem to adore her work because she critiques a safe target, snobbery, within a cozy genre, the romantic comedy. Her literary constructs are charming and tidy, but hold very little relation to life as I know it; which I find to be disorienting and messy. In other words, I'll take George Eliot or Dostoyevsky, please. That said, Stillman distills the most entertaining aspects of Austen and adds a post-feminist knowingness that punctures the Georgian decorum. All in all, the best Austen adaptation since Patricia Rozema's Mansfield Park. (7/3/17)