I’ve been doing the best genre film list thing for 2016, and I’ll keep to that as I haven’t seen enough outside the genre world to sum up all the work out there. But Love & Friendship has got to be high up on any full list, and slashes to bits most of those genre films.
Love and Friendship is a Jane Austin film. For those who don’t read or watch Austin (shame on you), she can be quite pointed. But her jabs tend to be done with a bit of affection. Society is dumb and the people in it shallow and silly, but society is beautiful as well and those shallow silly people have good hearts. Not so here. This is Austin with the gloves off and in full comedy mode.
What’s really fun is that we are completely on the side of the villain. Lady Susan (played wonderfully by Kate Beckinsale, returning to Austin after a fine 1996 turn as Emma–people forget what a fine actress she is, discounting her because of her action work in Underworld, and ignoring that she’s quite good in those films) is a manipulative, mastermind who is pathologically unable to see herself as anything but perfect. Most of those she twists about are fools, but a few rise above that, yet I wanted them to lose and Lady Susan to win. Her exact goals are foggy as key scenes are kept hidden from us–because Susan’s world is that of society; that is where she is mistress of all and so that is where we see her. That and reporting back to her confident who shares her outlook on life.
The plot twists here and there, particularly as so much is hidden, but the basics are simple enough: Lady Susan, a non-grieving widow currently lives by visiting wealthy friends and family. She’s looking for a bit of fun for herself, and a bit of money, and a match for her daughter. She’s just been tossed out of one house for her affair with the married master of the mansion, so heads over to her husband’s brother’s home. The wife hates her, and understands her, but is no equal. Lady Susan sets to work on those less clever and therein lies the story.
The film is ruthless with social custom, and more so toward those who control the status quo, while just being a lot of fun. Considering the failings of the world that the good people fit into so comfortably, perhaps Lady Susan is a heroine after all.