When he arrives at Churchill Castle, the estate in Surrey of Charles and Catherine Vernon (the brother and sister-in-law of Lady Susan’s late husband), Sir James punctuates almost every phrase with a laugh, and offers silly comments: “Churchill? That’s how you say it? All-together that way? … Churchill… That explains a great deal. The entire cast is superb, but the actor who comes closest to Beckinsale in completely winning viewers’ affections is Tom Bennett, who plays Sir James Martin, a dimwitted aristocrat who supplies the audience with endless laugh-out-loud opportunities. Her schemes never fail to succeed, thanks to her unmatched ability at gaslighting others. The title of the film thus immediately announces an irony with which all the events of the story will be suffused, as Lady Susan expertly uses her charm to simulate virtue in a diabolical way. True friendship is the type of friendship that is founded on the mutual pursuit of virtue - which would immediately disqualify the highly refined wickedness shared by Susan and Alicia.
These “love” affairs include not just finding a husband, whether for herself or for her daughter, but also adultery.Īristotle famously defined true friendship as being unlike the lesser “friendships” founded on utility or pleasure. Alicia Johnson (played by Chloë Sevigny), the only other soul who really knows her, and with whom she discusses her “love” affairs. The “friendship” in the title of his film ostensibly refers to the relationship Lady Susan has with her confidant Mrs. While Stillman’s screenplay takes its inspiration, and plunders all the best lines, from Austen’s Lady Susan, her epistolary account of Susan, he has suggestively given his own version a title from another piece of Austen’s juvenilia: “Love & Freindship”. Its memory stays with you long after viewing the film.
Kate Beckinsale’s masterful performance as the charming but amoral Lady Susan Vernon in Whit Stillman’s hilarious Jane Austen adaptation Love & Friendship is a rare cinematic experience.
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