Love & Friendship

Dir: Whit Stillman

2016

***

Whit Stillman's Love & Friendship is based on Jane Austin's 1794 novel Lady Susan. The book's epistolary style has meant that film makers have largely avoided making adaptations, so it is credit to director Whit Stillman for being the first to bring it to the big screen. For what it's worth, I think he was the perfect director for such a job, following great films such as Metropolitan and Damsels in Distress, he clearly has a passion for such stories and knows how to work them. However, understanding that he needed to change the format of the story, I feel he has lost as much as he has gained. Firstly, I love the structure of the story, it works brilliantly and the unlikely visuals actually work really well, even though they are generally out of place in a period drama. Bizarrely, Stillman has cited Michael Caine and Steve Martin's 1988 comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Frank Oz's remake of Bedtime Story) as his main visual influence. I actually saw the film's cinematographic style as being closer to that of a graphic novel personally, not that Dirty Rotten Scoundrels isn't a good looking film but I have no idea where he is coming from in that statement. Stillman has declared his love for the novel so much so that he has said that he made the film because he believed it should be as well-known as Austin's better known classics, and I don't disagree, I just find it puzzling why he would then choose to name the film after one of Austin's lesser known early works that she wrote as a child. He has also written a novelization of his own film, stating that Austin's book is flawed and unfinished. His version fills in the gaps presumably, an ostentatious arrogance some might say, that spills into the film itself. I have no problem with changes during the adaption process, books are completely different to film - I love them both - but there are limits. I was sad that Sienna Miller left the project and the main role but Kate Beckinsale did a pretty good job and was refreshingly different to what one would expect from such a film/role. She wouldn't have made my top 50 list of possibles but more fool me for overlooking her. Chloë Sevigny on the other hand, as much as I love her, is fairly terrible. The cast really is 50/50 when it comes to quality performance which really does kick the overall film in the teeth somewhat. Also, the unique style that Stillman begins the film with soon disappears and the production loses its momentum very quickly. I can't help but think the ending should have been a little more flamboyant, there should have been a twist of the knife but I felt it was rather anti-climactic. When the film is good it's stunning, but when the film is bad it is utterly boring. Miles ahead of many a period drama and indeed Jane Austin adaptation but it also falls far from what the original story deserved, there is subtle and then there is lethargic.