Love & FriendshipLove may come when you know someone well and friendship may come when you think you know someone well--or is that the other way around? For Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale), both the properties of "love" and "friendship" represent the same opportunities to exploit those around her and continue her lifestyle in the manner to which she has become accustomed. After the passing of her husband, the conniving widow sets her sights on securing a wealthy husband. But when her earliest observed attempts to do so unravel at the Langford estate, she chooses the young gentleman, Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel) as her subsequent mark.
|
|
Love & Friendship is a period piece set in England, roughly in the late 18th or early 19th century. But more than merely being a costume drama, the film is a romantic comedy. It is also adapted from the posthumously published, epistolary novel called "Lady Susan" by Jane Austen, arguably the progenitor of the romantic comedy as we know it, with her most famous works including "Pride and Prejudice". Directed and adapted for the screen by Whit Stillman--whose works boast dry wit and urbane characters in comedies of manners--it has also been said that the adaptation of a work by Jane Austen by this talented filmmaker is so perfectly aligned as to be nigh inconceivable--but here it is. The familiar elements of Jane Austen's other works are abundant, represented in the clash of figures in society with the inevitable conflicts that arise when matters of the heart become involved. But Love & Friendship is even cynical at times, specifically regarding those who would exploit the generosity and goodness of others as Lady Susan does in an abjectly unscrupulous way. Characters are introduced almost whole-cloth by titles and names from the start, a promise that the film will not only recall the stylistic tropes of the 18th century novels--from the likes of which Love & Friendship is adapted--but also the same brand of social interactions and "musical relationships" found often in the oeuvre of Whit Stillman.
Lady Susan is a snake, an asp clutched to the breast of the gentry. She is a gold digger, who has already spent all of her late husband's wealth, who has abandoned her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) at a boarding school, who plots and schemes with her equally caustic gossiping partner from Connecticut, Alicia Johnson (Chloë Sevigny). What is fascinating about these two vipers interacting is that often times, they convene and trade stories about their prior interactions and efforts to seduce and secure more advantageous positions in society, like Machiavellian matriarchs, and reiterate the events we have seen in the prior scene, albeit their accounts are often flagrant lies, so far removed from the actuality of what we witnessed. I found it entertaining that when I saw Love & Friendship in the theater, a trailer for a film adaptation of the British television show, "Absolutely Fabulous", preceded it, and could not help but make connections between the two self-absorbed gal pal duos, both of which rarely exhibit the more meritorious qualities of the "fairer sex". Interestingly, seeing Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny working together in another Whit Stillman picture (as in The Last Days of Disco) highlights their great working dynamic, which makes the scenes between Susan and Alicia all the stronger. These moments are crucial to understanding just how horrible Lady Susan really is, how selfish and conspiring, because without them, we too might be seduced by Susan's charm and manner. Lady Susan is a beautiful woman, well-dressed, well-spoken--if exceedingly arrogant--and her presentation charms Reginald as she intended. So skilled at the games of manipulating a man's heart is Lady Susan that while others around Reginald warn him about Susan's ghastly reputation, he remains resolute that they are just rumors to discredit her...although he fails to ask himself why so many would wish to do so were the rumors not true. As Reginald's sister--and Susan's sister-in-law--Catherine Vernon (Emma Greenwell) observes to her parents after Susan breaks it off with her brother, Susan has done so in earnest because she understands that it would wound her brother's pride, making him more vulnerable to her advances later. If this level of strategy and cunning were applied elsewhere, kingdoms might fall, so devastatingly crafty is the widow Vernon.
Love & Friendship opens with a simple narrative statement which sets the tone: "Langford...Langford...if Langford had not happened, we would all be happy", as the heretofore unnamed Lady Susan departs the home she has rent asunder, seducing the handsome Lord Manwaring, yet leaving his wife a distraught wreck. As the scene unfolds, George Frideric Handel's "Sarabande" plays, a sad and somber selection, one even more closely identified with another period piece about a rakish protagonist, Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, adapted from a novel of the period by William Makepeace Thackeray. Barry Lyndon and Lady Susan share much in common, save that one is forced to presume that at some point, Lady Susan may have been a sweet and virtuous girl, not unlike her daughter is. This bodes ominously poor for her girl if this is the case, who shares many superficial qualities with her mother, such as what Reginald describes as a "beautiful soprano voice". Susan is so jealous, so determined to position events in her favor, to control Reginald into making her his wife, that she is even suspicious that when Frederica runs away from school and comes to Churchill--the Vernon estate--that her presence and proximity in age with Reginald will make her own daughter a potential rival. As such, Susan arranges for an "unintended" suitor for Frederica, an absolute fool (albeit a wealthy one) named Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), whom Frederica has to literally run away from at times to avoid his idiotic company. Love & Friendship is a dry comedy and one that is best when one is attentive to the sly turns of phrase throughout, but Sir James' inclusion helps to keep the comedy from becoming too parched as a result of the raw buffoonery of every nugget of stupidity which falls from his lips. But what is worse for Frederica is that regardless of her mother's intentions to marry her off to a dope is that she and James have nothing in common, and it is doubtful that he could ever entertain Frederica's intelligence at all. She does find herself enjoying conversing and confiding in Reginald, and the two become friends, leading to love. In Whit Stillman's own breakthrough film, Metropolitan, his protagonist, Tom Townsend, tells his eventual love interest, Audrey Rouget, that he did not believe that the lead character in Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park" was convincing because she was virtuous, was a good person, a criticism which Audrey refutes by claiming that it is not so implausible for a character to be virtuous and believable. While Lady Susan is clearly the antithesis of this, Frederica is herself a "good girl", someone who Reginald eventually finds himself drawn to because he begins to understand what it is Lady Susan truly values, but more so, what he is looking for in his own life: "love" and "friendship".
Recommended for: Fans of dry comedies, period pieces, and exceedingly clever wit and humor. Love & Friendship rewards viewers who pay acute attention to the mannerisms, diction, and subtleties of the characters, unashamed to be highbrow and uproarious simultaneously.
Lady Susan is a snake, an asp clutched to the breast of the gentry. She is a gold digger, who has already spent all of her late husband's wealth, who has abandoned her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) at a boarding school, who plots and schemes with her equally caustic gossiping partner from Connecticut, Alicia Johnson (Chloë Sevigny). What is fascinating about these two vipers interacting is that often times, they convene and trade stories about their prior interactions and efforts to seduce and secure more advantageous positions in society, like Machiavellian matriarchs, and reiterate the events we have seen in the prior scene, albeit their accounts are often flagrant lies, so far removed from the actuality of what we witnessed. I found it entertaining that when I saw Love & Friendship in the theater, a trailer for a film adaptation of the British television show, "Absolutely Fabulous", preceded it, and could not help but make connections between the two self-absorbed gal pal duos, both of which rarely exhibit the more meritorious qualities of the "fairer sex". Interestingly, seeing Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny working together in another Whit Stillman picture (as in The Last Days of Disco) highlights their great working dynamic, which makes the scenes between Susan and Alicia all the stronger. These moments are crucial to understanding just how horrible Lady Susan really is, how selfish and conspiring, because without them, we too might be seduced by Susan's charm and manner. Lady Susan is a beautiful woman, well-dressed, well-spoken--if exceedingly arrogant--and her presentation charms Reginald as she intended. So skilled at the games of manipulating a man's heart is Lady Susan that while others around Reginald warn him about Susan's ghastly reputation, he remains resolute that they are just rumors to discredit her...although he fails to ask himself why so many would wish to do so were the rumors not true. As Reginald's sister--and Susan's sister-in-law--Catherine Vernon (Emma Greenwell) observes to her parents after Susan breaks it off with her brother, Susan has done so in earnest because she understands that it would wound her brother's pride, making him more vulnerable to her advances later. If this level of strategy and cunning were applied elsewhere, kingdoms might fall, so devastatingly crafty is the widow Vernon.
Love & Friendship opens with a simple narrative statement which sets the tone: "Langford...Langford...if Langford had not happened, we would all be happy", as the heretofore unnamed Lady Susan departs the home she has rent asunder, seducing the handsome Lord Manwaring, yet leaving his wife a distraught wreck. As the scene unfolds, George Frideric Handel's "Sarabande" plays, a sad and somber selection, one even more closely identified with another period piece about a rakish protagonist, Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, adapted from a novel of the period by William Makepeace Thackeray. Barry Lyndon and Lady Susan share much in common, save that one is forced to presume that at some point, Lady Susan may have been a sweet and virtuous girl, not unlike her daughter is. This bodes ominously poor for her girl if this is the case, who shares many superficial qualities with her mother, such as what Reginald describes as a "beautiful soprano voice". Susan is so jealous, so determined to position events in her favor, to control Reginald into making her his wife, that she is even suspicious that when Frederica runs away from school and comes to Churchill--the Vernon estate--that her presence and proximity in age with Reginald will make her own daughter a potential rival. As such, Susan arranges for an "unintended" suitor for Frederica, an absolute fool (albeit a wealthy one) named Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), whom Frederica has to literally run away from at times to avoid his idiotic company. Love & Friendship is a dry comedy and one that is best when one is attentive to the sly turns of phrase throughout, but Sir James' inclusion helps to keep the comedy from becoming too parched as a result of the raw buffoonery of every nugget of stupidity which falls from his lips. But what is worse for Frederica is that regardless of her mother's intentions to marry her off to a dope is that she and James have nothing in common, and it is doubtful that he could ever entertain Frederica's intelligence at all. She does find herself enjoying conversing and confiding in Reginald, and the two become friends, leading to love. In Whit Stillman's own breakthrough film, Metropolitan, his protagonist, Tom Townsend, tells his eventual love interest, Audrey Rouget, that he did not believe that the lead character in Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park" was convincing because she was virtuous, was a good person, a criticism which Audrey refutes by claiming that it is not so implausible for a character to be virtuous and believable. While Lady Susan is clearly the antithesis of this, Frederica is herself a "good girl", someone who Reginald eventually finds himself drawn to because he begins to understand what it is Lady Susan truly values, but more so, what he is looking for in his own life: "love" and "friendship".
Recommended for: Fans of dry comedies, period pieces, and exceedingly clever wit and humor. Love & Friendship rewards viewers who pay acute attention to the mannerisms, diction, and subtleties of the characters, unashamed to be highbrow and uproarious simultaneously.