Review of Love & Friendship (2016) by Andrew K — 30 Jun 2016

What this guy says...but I gave it an extra 1/2 star because of the company I was with:

Glenn Gaylord.

IT'S STILTED, MAN - My Review of LOVE & FRIENDSHIP (2 1/2 Stars) I've never been a huge fan of Whit Stillman's films, finding them too dry, too arch, and too talky. They have their fleeting charms, such as THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, but too often I've felt like an outsider peering in on the not so interesting lives of silver spoon 1 percenters. Moreover, the drawing room genre, be it DOWNTON ABBEY or most MERCHANT IVORY productions have never gotten me too terribly excited. So take my review with a grain of salt, especially when I say that I found LOVE & FRIENDSHIP to be an excruciating experience, despite it being the perfect marriage between Stillman and Jane Austen. Adapted from Austen's novella, LADY SUSAN, the film follows Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale), a recent widow who journeys to find men for both herself and her little loved daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark). Susan embodies a much more pronounced version of the independent women Austen so lovingly created. Almost every word that comes out of her mouth contains an element of bitterness, sharp wit, and a refusal to adhere to the gender norms of her time, in this case the late 1700s England. Beckinsale, in very fine form, clearly relishes every single barb, reminding us of the promise of her early films such as COLD COMFORT FARM and making us forget the swill of her UNDERWORLD series. Beckinsale gets wonderful support from Chloë Sevigny, as her American friend, Alicia Johnson, who shares Susan's nihilistic view of mankind. As they hatch their plan to manipulate the men around them, my hopes for a rollicking good time intensified, especially any time Tom Bennett appeared onscreen as Sir James Martin, a supremely silly and ridiculously happy gentleman. Always at a loss for words while simultaneously unafraid to babble on and on, his performance pops. We're also graced with loving, candlelit period detail, nicely captured by cinematographer Richard Van Oosterhout and production designer Anna Rackard. So why, oh why, did I not enjoy what sounds like a perfectly wonderful film experience? I blame the Whit Stillman aesthetic and my own unwillingness to sit still when rich people tut about in well-appointed rooms. The themes of this film may seem timeless and universal, and every mean-spirited Beckinsale line packs a punch, but it all reeks of first world problems. People either occupy rooms in which to meet each other, or they walk in elegant gardens. Sometimes, just to keep things outrageously exciting, they may sit in a horse drawn carriage or two! In other words, I couldn't care less about the comings and goings of these folks. Austen's approach involved a series of letters and apparently never meant for LADY SUSAN or LOVE & FREINDSHIP (misspelled on the cover) to find publication. She seemed to be working out themes of female independence as a teen that would later mature with such novels as EMMA and PRIDE & PREJUDICE. Still, I completely understand why Stillman sparked to this adaptation. His previous films featured characters who spoke at such high levels and exhibited such poise and manners, they seemed to have sprung out of the Napoleonic War era in England themselves. Again, fans of Stillman's, Austen's, and flat, often funny, dryly witty films with almost zero stakes could do worse.