Movie Review: Love & Friendship
About halfway through the latest Jane Austen film adaptation, Love & Friendship, I realized this film was not made for me. As I listened to audience members chuckle at lines that seemed too cheesy or dated to me, I knew this would be an example of others enjoying a film much more than I did. There were certainly moments of Love & Friendship I enjoyed, but it just felt like I was stuck in a high school classroom again reading a book I had zero interest in reading. 
Almost nothing in the film gripped my attention, from the various relationships, to the “quirky” 1790s dialogue, it all just seemed like an inside joke I was not a part of. I guess this is what non-superhero film fans feel like when they watch the latest Captain America movie.
Love & Friendship can be classified as a romantic comedy and follows widow Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale, in arguably her best performance to date) who visits her brother-in-law’s estate when rumors about her personal life start to surface. While there, she seeks a husband for not only herself, but for her daughter as well, Frederica (Morfydd Clark). Although the cast list is relatively small, every character is given their own subplot and relationship issues. All of the characters’ situations intersect and provide for some amusing rom-com moments, but it is all buried underneath late-1700s British dialogue that really did not work for me. All of the characters talk about their situations and how to handle things, rather than doing anything about them. If there is any action or development, it usually happens off-screen and then the characters describing what happened. This leads to long, mostly uninteresting scenes of two characters talking, and then writer/director Whit Stillman throwing in a joke or two to make sure the audience is still awake.
Despite the mostly uninteresting dialogue driven scenes, there are some bright spots in Love & Friendship. The brightest is certainly Beckinsale, who normally turns in average performances in below average films, this time she shines as the widow looking for a new husband. She carries many of the scenes and delivers the film’s tricky dialogue in a confident, sophisticated way. Although I did not always like what she was saying, I enjoyed watching the delivery of her lines. To go along with Beckinsale’s fine performance, the costume and production designs are both top notch. Everything feels authentic and somewhat vibrant, which does not always happen in these period pieces. While I was not connecting with the stories or really any of the characters, I was enjoying looking at everything on the screen.
Overall, Love & Friendship is a perfect example of a film that was not made with my taste of movies in mind. It would be like asking someone who does not find action movies enjoyable what they thought of Mad Max: Fury Road, they would say they did not like it even though it is generally agreed on that is a quality film (it did land 12 Academy Award nominations after all). That being said, a good movie can appeal to everyone, not just fans of that genre. For example, Brooklyn was one of my favorite films of 2015 and that was a love story set in 1950s New York. Well-made, interesting, and engaging films can transcend genres, but I do not think Love & Friendship is one of those movies. It will certainly have its fans, but I am not one of them.
Scott Davis
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