This has been my first week of retirement, actual retirement from that part of my life that generated a living. Now, while I have a lot of things to do, there is also a fundamental re-ordering of our lives at Casa Ford Seymour Ford, including the finding of new rhythms.
Which leads to yesterday, where quite spontaneously we decided to go to a movie. A quick run through the options for a late matinee, our preferred time, we saw that Love and Friendship was playing at one of our near by theaters. And, with a little confusion at not having to deal with a crammed calendar, off we went!
The plot is simple enough. As Wikipedia outlines it, the story is “(s)et in the 1790s, the widowed Lady Susan Vernon seeks refuge with her in-laws as rumors about her scandalous private life circulate through polite society. While staying at the estate, Lady Susan decides to find husbands for herself and her daughter, Frederica.” So far, that certainly sounds very Jane Austen. And so it is, being based on her novella Lady Susan.
While Austen had written poetry and even, I gather, a play before this, Lady Susan was her first run at a novel. Austen was about twenty when she wrote it. Set as a series of letters, it resembles her later Sense & Sensibility, except that the protagonist, Lady Susan is a scoundrel. It was not published in her lifetime. And, one can see why. Apparently the creators of the film have continued to rework the story and there is a full on “novelization” published under the movie’s title for those who are sufficiently taken with the story as it plays out on screen to want more.
I don’t expect to read the book. But, I did very much enjoy the startling effect of an Austen story where the protagonist is a straight-ahead adventuress. And I am not alone, fully ninety-nine percent of Rotten Tomatoes’ one hundred and twenty-two reported professional reviewers, liked it. While a larger percentage of fan reviews did not like it, still, fully seventy-five percent of the slightly more than nine thousand who chose to give an opinion concurred with the professionals.
Rotten Tomatoes further elaborates the plot. “Beautiful young widow Lady Susan Vernon visits to the estate of her in-laws to wait out the colourful rumours about her dalliances circulating through polite society. Whilst ensconced there, she decides to secure a husband for herself and a future for her eligible but reluctant daughter, Frederica. In doing so she attracts the simultaneous attentions of the young, handsome Reginald DeCourcy, the rich and silly Sir James Martin and the divinely handsome, but married, Lord Manwaring, complicating matters severely.” The film is rated PG for some “thematic elements.”
The world is familiar to anyone who has read Austen or viewed countless films set in that stultifying and vacuous world. Filmed in Ireland, the movie is visually stunning. It also shows in detail the constraints everyone lives with. The language is pure Austen. The insights into human personalities are perhaps not quite yet the fully mature Austen, But, instead, we get a more jaundiced view, with all the judgment of the foolishness and frippery, along with the danger that accompanies every decision, all of it delivered pitch perfect.
The script is written and directed by Whit Stillman, the cast is led by Kate Beckinsale as the utterly scandalous Lady Susan, with perfect to a “T” support from a cast that includes Morfydd Clark as Frederica Vernon, Chloe Sevigny as Alicia Johnson, Emma Breenwell as Catherin Vernon, Xavier Samuel as Reginald DeCourty, Justin Edwards as Charles Vernon, and a delightful turn by Stephen Fry as Mr Johnson. Would that there’d been just a bit more of him.
Peter Travers writing for Rolling Stone considers Love and Friendship one of the best films of the year. He writes, “I can’t think of a more wickedly modern romantic comedy…”
‘Tis the very truth.
Visually stunning, wickedly funny, I recommend it.
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