“Love & Friendship” reunites Beckinsale and Sevigny with Stillman, 18 years after they made “The Last Days of Disco” together. Johnson is “too old to be governable, too young to die.” On another occasion, she laments that Mr. Johnson’s next gouty attack end more favorably,” Lady Susan says, consoling her friend. Johnson sees marriage as a means to an end, eternally hoping for her respectable husband’s (Stephen Fry) demise and disappointed when it doesn’t come. Alicia Johnson (Chloe Sevigny), with whom she shares her schemes. Her one equal is her good friend, an American, Mrs. Of course, when they’re small, there’s a sweetness that compensates for the dreadfulness that comes after.”īeckinsale delivers the line with the delicious satisfaction of a self-aware woman confident that she’s always one step ahead of everyone else. Here, she’s portrayed as a whiny antagonist, with her mother regarding her with this verbal swipe: “Children. Forced to marry for convenience instead of finding her true love. A master improviser, Susan proposes to marry off Frederica to the available Sir James Martin, a ridiculous man who delights in discovering the pleasure of eating peas or “tiny green balls,” as he calls the “novelty vegetable.”įrederica’s dilemma would be the focus of most Austen adaptations. Success seems inevitable until Lady Susan’s daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark), arrives at the estate, having run away from school. Her plan, initially, is to marry Reginald De Courcy (Xavier Samuel), the handsome, younger brother of Catherine Vernon (Emma Greenwell), the sister-in-law who sees Susan with clear eyes. Lady Susan advocates a take-no-prisoners approach to financial security. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Austen’s world knows that without a husband, Lady Susan’s prospects are uncertain. The widowed Lady Susan, when we first meet her, is swiftly leaving the Langford estate (owned by the divinely attractive and inconveniently married Lord Manwaring) and taking up residence with her in-laws. Lord Manwaring (Lochlann O’Mearain), for example, is said to be a “divinely attractive man.” Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), meanwhile, is labeled “a bit of a rattle.” (More on him later.) Stillman sets the sly tone immediately, introducing his numerous characters with a string of portraits, their names and defining characteristics written out in title cards. “Love & Friendship” is, first and foremost, a master class on the art of comic timing, in its filmmaking and acting. And even if it does contain more than a kernel of truth, Lady Susan would probably counter with a pithy rejoinder, something along the lines that “facts are horrid things.” The woman can justify anything. But, you know, that’s just, like, her opinion, man.
0 kommentar(er)
