This adaptation of minor Austen is a good idea as concept: less well known than the major novels, less expectations. And it works! Kate Beckinsale in her best role to date as the schemer after a perfect moneyed marriage.
In some ways his most formally perfect work. At 91 minutes it doesn't overstay its welcome. Crisp editing too.
http://stanforddaily.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/KateBeckinsale_SLIDER-660x330.jpg
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 21 May 2016 19:02 (seven years ago) link
I'm a huge fan (though I haven't seen his last one before this because ugh, Greta Gerwig); just bought the trilogy on Blu-Ray. Will definitely check this out as soon as it's streaming on Amazon (no theater near me has it showing at a convenient time).
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Saturday, 21 May 2016 19:28 (seven years ago) link
Look forward to this. It's a goofy and decidedly un-sentimental novelette, but still more 'sensible' than most of Austen's crazy ass juvenilia where cheating, murderin' and cannibalism are matters of course.
― abcfsk, Saturday, 21 May 2016 19:32 (seven years ago) link
will watch. eventually. my brother-in-law did not do the crisp editing on this one. i am still scratching my head over that last movie.
― scott seward, Saturday, 21 May 2016 19:41 (seven years ago) link
I was laughing every three minutes on average. Beckinsale is po-faced perfection.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 21 May 2016 19:41 (seven years ago) link
love the Beckinsale.
― scott seward, Saturday, 21 May 2016 20:46 (seven years ago) link
This movie was really wonderful!
― sexy dander (Stevie D(eux)), Monday, 23 May 2016 00:20 (seven years ago) link
i couldn't watch that tv thing he did and was afraid he'd fell off, but heard only great things about this..
― de l'asshole (flopson), Monday, 23 May 2016 03:35 (seven years ago) link
though I haven't seen his last one before this because ugh, Greta Gerwig
gerwig is rly w/o compare for best american actress of her generation but, even apart from that, this is a bad reason not to watch a film by a director you like
one of the most interesting things abt this - kinda cf spring breakers - is the pleasant surprise of stillman's agility as a director; lots of beautiful small touches & well measured moments, in a particular understated way unapparent in the other films
― schlump, Monday, 23 May 2016 04:52 (seven years ago) link
Not liking Gerwig is a good reason for not watching a film by a director you like. She isn't just bad, she's toxic.
― CRANK IT YA FILTHY BISM! (jed_), Monday, 23 May 2016 05:41 (seven years ago) link
Really looking forward to this. His last one sucked but encouraged by all the good press this time. Glad he's sort of back.
― flappy bird, Monday, 23 May 2016 05:54 (seven years ago) link
The trailer for this is hysterically funny. I hope it doesn't use all the jokes though.
― CRANK IT YA FILTHY BISM! (jed_), Friday, 27 May 2016 21:57 (seven years ago) link
Kate is on a UK chat show now and she is incredibly beautiful and shockingly funny.
― CRANK IT YA FILTHY BISM! (jed_), Friday, 27 May 2016 22:01 (seven years ago) link
I thought it was quite funny
― conrad, Friday, 27 May 2016 22:11 (seven years ago) link
Steady on.
― CRANK IT YA FILTHY BISM! (jed_), Friday, 27 May 2016 22:17 (seven years ago) link
quite!
― conrad, Friday, 27 May 2016 22:23 (seven years ago) link
This was great - saw it just now. One of the most egregiously joke-ruining trailers of all time though
― And the cry rang out all o'er the town / Good Heavens! Tay is down (imago), Friday, 27 May 2016 22:43 (seven years ago) link
last days of disco on the cable TV this evening, presumably b/c of connection to this film
surprised that i remembered so much of it so well, and so fondly
i never knew quite what to make of whit stillman back in the day; he's easy to make fun of. but his films have something. even the pedestrian visual style has a kind of appealing limpid quality, much like some of eric rohmer.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Saturday, 28 May 2016 01:47 (seven years ago) link
chloe sevigny had very nice hair in 1998.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Saturday, 28 May 2016 01:48 (seven years ago) link
I was in an AMC theatre last night, and they had a freebie table with X-Men swag and...swag for this film.
Very strange.
― Now I Know How Joan of Arcadia Felt (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 28 May 2016 01:50 (seven years ago) link
What kind of swag??
― sexy dander (Stevie D(eux)), Saturday, 28 May 2016 01:53 (seven years ago) link
last days of disco on the cable TV this evening, presumably b/c of connection to this filmsurprised that i remembered so much of it so well, and so fondlyi never knew quite what to make of whit stillman back in the day; he's easy to make fun of. but his films have something. even the pedestrian visual style has a kind of appealing limpid quality, much like some of eric rohmer.
― Son of Shaftway (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 28 May 2016 01:55 (seven years ago) link
I think the first film that has made me look forward to reading the (adaptation / completion / interpretation of the) novel ... Conn. jokes (from Jane?) :)
― youn, Saturday, 28 May 2016 02:07 (seven years ago) link
Damsels in Distress was appalling through.
― CRANK IT YA FILTHY BISM! (jed_), Saturday, 28 May 2016 02:09 (seven years ago) link
i like gerwig
beckinsale has made so many terrible looking sexy vampire movies I'd written her off but saw her on colbert or something the other week and she was so charming I kind of fell in love with her.
― akm, Saturday, 28 May 2016 03:27 (seven years ago) link
What kind of swag??― sexy dander (Stevie D(eux)), Friday, May 27, 2016 8:53 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― sexy dander (Stevie D(eux)), Friday, May 27, 2016 8:53 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Mini-posters and promo postcards, beside the same (and buttons and stickers and stuff) for X-Men.
― Now I Know How Joan of Arcadia Felt (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 28 May 2016 04:17 (seven years ago) link
I loved it.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 28 May 2016 05:52 (seven years ago) link
Saw it with a friend earlier. Beyond a "liked it" there was nothing much to say and we absolutely didn't waste a second on it. Some wit and design aside its a nice film to take a friend to see.
Could see what all the Kate Beckinsdale business was all about, she has been in so much awful shit. Overall though Trifle.jpg
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 29 May 2016 23:51 (seven years ago) link
this movie rules
― horseshoe, Monday, 30 May 2016 00:27 (seven years ago) link
a thoroughly entertaining trifle
the guy who played the idiot rich farmer seemed v much like Ricky Gervais
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, 30 May 2016 01:22 (seven years ago) link
Beyond a "liked it" there was nothing much to say and we absolutely didn't waste a second on it.
My conclusion too. Beckinsale's best.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 30 May 2016 02:44 (seven years ago) link
Adam Thirlwell in the NYRB (SPOILERS):
It’s a quieter, English-country-house-version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses—where a ruthless woman is humiliated. But in Stillman’s rendering, something has happened to its finale. True, Lady Susan is now married to Sir James Martin and Frederica is married to Reginald De Courcy. But in the original, it is Reginald who broke off the relationship with Lady Susan, when he discovered the extent of her duplicity. In Love & Friendship, it is Lady Susan’s decision. It is not humiliation, but quiet control. At one point, her confidante, Mrs. Johnson, observes to Lady Susan that in fact to marry Sir James herself would not be an irrational project, given her precarious financial position as a widow: “I would rather be married to my own husband than dependent on the hospitality of others.” Stillman’s Lady Susan will not be Blanche DuBois. Her stratagems can be appreciated not as immoralities but as moving pirouettes of social survival.
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/05/27/love-and-friendship-unserious-austen/
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, 30 May 2016 08:14 (seven years ago) link
Enjoyed the Soto take
― And the cry rang out all o'er the town / Good Heavens! Tay is down (imago), Monday, 30 May 2016 08:32 (seven years ago) link
Idiot rich farmer was very Harry Enfield (Tim nice but dim)
I want to read a Maoist take on this. Burn these fucking estates!
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 30 May 2016 08:55 (seven years ago) link
http://www.filmcomment.com/blog/film-week-love-friendship/
Like Romney and all but this made me laugh:
As a supposedly literate Englishman, I must confess a heresy: I don’t enjoy Austen that much, and on a certain level, I don’t entirely get her. Certainly, as the bons mots cascaded and warm eruptions of knowing amusement broke out around the London screening room where I watched Love & Friendship, I couldn’t help feeling a little out of the loop, as if I were the only person there uninitiated into a secret language. Partly that was because I was taking notes, and having trouble keeping up: the sheer pace of the exchanges (you could call the film’s mode “Accelerated Austen”) meant that whenever I tried to write down a character’s pithy aperçu, I ended up missing three more—and at the start of the film, several plot points. The language positively ripples past and is hard to follow unless you’re attuned to this kind of dialogue—unless you have, as it were, the Austen ear, and I willingly admit that I don’t.
Like bro, kick back and read this thread: ts big dogs 2014 edition #1: dostoyevsky vs austen
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 30 May 2016 08:59 (seven years ago) link
I liked this a lot, so many small perfect touches.
The precise arrangement of the actors in the final shot reminded me of "The Best Years of Our Lives" -- Manwaring's eye coming into the frame above the shoulders of the happy couple, just before the cut.
Or, the little girl muttering "try to be good," and how that suggests an entire society of shoehorned personalities -- Martin's nervous verbosity, Susan relishing her small degree of power. Etc.
― geoffreyess, Thursday, 2 June 2016 22:09 (seven years ago) link
*muttering to herself
― geoffreyess, Thursday, 2 June 2016 22:10 (seven years ago) link
surely the little girl is muttering to the little boy and what that suggests
― conrad, Friday, 3 June 2016 09:28 (seven years ago) link
A+: Lady Susan's dis of Reginald as "calflike" (reflected by casting too)
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 10 June 2016 14:30 (seven years ago) link
Saw this last night and loved it. Tom Bennett's nincompoop is one of the funniest characters of the year.
Later I spent some time reading the source material. This is a very loose adaptation, and almost all of the dialogue is Stillman's, not Austen's.
― it me, Friday, 10 June 2016 14:47 (seven years ago) link
favorite movie of the year
― akm, Thursday, 22 September 2016 18:28 (seven years ago) link
I thought it was very funny. I haven't read the novella, so I'm not sure how accurate the film is, but it felt quite different from mature Austen. The Austen novels have an evenness which is absent here. It's more going for laughs.
― jmm, Thursday, 22 September 2016 18:34 (seven years ago) link
Stillman changed things.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 22 September 2016 18:44 (seven years ago) link
I haven't paid any attention to Beckinsale since Cold Comfort Farm. I feel like I should rectify this but her filmography is awfully full of vampire films
― akm, Thursday, 22 September 2016 18:53 (seven years ago) link
she plays a vampire here
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 22 September 2016 18:57 (seven years ago) link
haha
― akm, Thursday, 22 September 2016 18:57 (seven years ago) link
god help me she was so manipulative and conniving yet I fell in love with her
― akm, Thursday, 22 September 2016 19:37 (seven years ago) link
I didn't think Sevigny was that great. She's just a foil to Lady Susan, but she seemed out of place.
― jmm, Thursday, 22 September 2016 19:48 (seven years ago) link
This was minor but enjoyable. Loved the dramatis personae bits. Liked Beckinsale, but kinda felt like she was doing Joan Collins the whole time. The actor who played Reginald was some good eye-candy.
― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Thursday, 17 November 2016 16:27 (seven years ago) link
loved this. many laughs.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 15 March 2017 03:38 (seven years ago) link
It's good and interesting that Lord Manwaring has very likely orchestrated the whole thing with Lady Susan and yet he doesn't say a word in the film. Very clever. This was a bit of a mess at first, I thought, but it got much better and funnier as it went on. Excellent casting apart from Sevigny who was out of her depth.
It's a stange criticism but the v modern and current looking female make up was a weird choice.
― Heavy Doors (jed_), Thursday, 23 March 2017 04:54 (seven years ago) link
oh i really liked Sevigny in this!
― Mordy, Thursday, 23 March 2017 13:06 (seven years ago) link
Well
… I really liked Whit Stillman's Jane Austen adaptation Love and Friendship. But it lost something once I clocked that all the front doors had letterboxes: they came along with stamps in the mid 19th century – before then, you had to pay up to get your letters handed over. And…— Robert Hanks (@RobertHanks) May 8, 2023
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 8 May 2023 15:38 (ten months ago) link
Do we have a thread to log these kinds of things?
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 8 May 2023 15:41 (ten months ago) link