Whit Stillman has made a jewel of a film called LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. Stillman, who was raised in Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY, doesn’t have a very prolific career as a film writer/director, but his films, which include METROPOLITAN, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, and DAMSELS IN DISTRESS, are artful and clearly are his unique conceptions.
In LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP, Stillman creates a very entertaining comedy from a long unpublished work of Jane Austen called “Lady Susan.” Austen wrote this epistolary novella around 1794 but it was not published until 1871. The story of “Lady Susan,” subsequently the story of LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP, focuses on a beautiful widow of early middle age, a conniving flirt, who manipulates the lives of those around her to best benefit herself.
Kate Beckinsale, who also worked with Stillman on THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, plays Lady Susan Vernon. While I cannot say that Beckinsale is outstanding in any way, she does convey the devious nature of the character with credibility, and her performance suits the light-hearted, witty air of the film and its underlying literary work. Sometimes a book-based movie becomes a more complete experience for the viewer after they read the source material. Such was the case for this reviewer. Anyone with a computer or e-book reader can access the novella “Lady Susan” online for free, and it only takes two to three hours to read.
Noting that Austen built her story solely through a long stream of letters brings an appreciation of how Stillman was able to translate that very narrow structure into a feature-length screenplay. Throughout, he stays true to Austen’s plotlines and ambiance, and the dialog that he creates to tell the story on film perfectly suits the character of Austen’s writing. Some of the most effective comic dialog actually springs from Stillman’s imagination, proving that he has a deep understanding of the original work.
Even though a number of the characters in LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP have relatively brief screen time, they are full-blown creations. Xavier Samuel of THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE, British TV actor Tom Bennett , Emma Greenwell of the TV series SHAMELESS, Brit favorite James Fleet, and the marvelous Stephen Fry, are only a few of the actors in the cast who bring Austen’s story to vivid and engaging life.
Only Chloe Sevigny, who co-starred with Beckinsale in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, and who appears as Lady Susan’s friend and fellow conspirator, strikes me as a misfit in the universe of the movie. The character originally was British in the novella, but Stillman makes her a transplant from Connecticut, presumably to provide a role to a favored actress. Possibly because of an unsuccessful adaptation on Stillman’s part, Sevigny’s character never really comes together. But that’s a very minor complaint. Piffle, one might say-- in a phrase first used at the time “Lady Susan” was published!
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP provides great amusement for Austen lovers and for anyone who can enjoy a stylized comedy about romantic love, familial relationships, friendship, gossip, deceit, and human foibles. In other words, the movie’s timeless themes, in the talented hands of Whit Stillman, lead the viewer to a very rewarding experience.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former Director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and has co-authored several entertainment biographies with her husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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