Love & Friendship Reviews

(MU) Wit and humour and speed and nice acting; Stillman is an underrated director. This is halfway "Liaison dangereuses" with Austen...

To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Kate Beckinsale, I thought I might as well check it out. Apparently, it was adapted from a rather obscure novella from Jane Austen but, to make things even more confusing, they gave it the title of another book written by Austen which wasn't a good omen. Anyway, I really struggled to care about the damned thing. I mean, Beckinsale was a perfect choice to play the lead and I do believe that she gave here one of her best performances. However, her character was such an unlikeable, insufferable bitch, as a result, it was borderline cringe-inducing to behold. To make things worse, it was really hard to believe that Reginald DeCourcy, a seemingly smart fellow, would fall for her dirty tricks which were just so obvious. Somehow, out of nowhere, they managed to end up the whole thing with a happy-ending for all the characters involved which made everything you had seen before even more pointless. Of course, you might argue that I have never been a huge fan of Austen's work but it was definitely not one of her best stories. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I have to admit that it was rather well made, it was also better than most of the movies usually starring Kate Beckinsale so I guess it is still worth a look, especially if you like the genre.