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.
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.
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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