Bringing Jane Austen to Sundance
PARK CITY, UTAH— Whit Stillman and Jane Austen make for such a delightful couple, it’s amazing they haven’t been brought together prior to Love & Friendship, a comedy of manners enjoying its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
The modern American writer/ director and the 18th- to 19th-century English novelist share a satirist’s love both of language and the divide between what is said and what is really meant, especially pertaining to matters of affection.
Hence Love & Friendship, which writer/director Stillman wickedly adapts from Austen’s unpublished early novella Lady Susan. He dispenses with Austen’s letter-exchange format (he actually sends it up) and adds at least one character while expanding others and also enlivening the narrative with amusing jabs.
He makes excellent use of Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny, who Stillman previously teamed for The Last Days of Disco in 1998, and Beckinsale particularly rewards his loyalty.
She’s a firecracker in Regency Period finery as Lady Susan Vernon, a recently widowed woman of the 18th-century English upper class, who finds herself with both a bruised reputation and bank account for reasons that shall be elucidated in due course.
A determined schemer and gold digger, Lady Susan has a tongue that can inflict lasting scars — another character compares her to the serpent in the Garden of Eden — but she naturally considers herself the most civilized of ladies, unless provoked.
“Condescension was necessary, although I abhor it,” she lies to her friend Alicia (Sevigny), an American living in England.
Lady Susan is on a mission of the cougar kind. She wants to marry the dashing Reginald De Courcy (Xavier Samuel), younger brother of her sister-in-law Mrs. Catherine Vernon (Emma Greenwell). She invites herself to the Vernon country estate of Churchill and commences wooing Reginald, heedless of their age gap of 20 years or more. Reginald seems ripe to succumb to her serious beauty and devious seductions, but suddenly the wind blows in Frederica (Morfydd Clark), Lady Susan’s daughter who has escaped from a hated school.
Gentle Frederica poses an ageappropriate rival for Reginald’s heart, so Lady Susan counters by inviting to Churchill Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), a dim-witted but wealthy gentleman to whom she intends to marry off Frederica, despite her daughter’s protestations.
It all sounds dastardly and it is, but it’s also a real hoot, especially with the gullible Reginald and the clownish Sir James proving at every turn Lady Susan’s cynical belief that men are to be toyed with but not taken seriously.
The picture is a pleasure just to listen to, but it’s also a joy to watch, with cinematography and production design of a quality normally reserved for prestige period dramas. Watch for Love & Friendship to figure into awards speculation for next year’s season of gold.
Stillman, who was first at Sun- dance in 1990 with his breakthrough hit Metropolitan, told his capacity audience at the Eccles Theatre Sunday that he was attracted to the “delicious comedy” of Austen’s novella: “She was channelling Oscar Wilde a century before he was born.”
Love & Friendship is due for an early summer release, Stillman said, and he has another scheme in mind that’s worthy of his central character: “I have a novel based on this in which Lady Susan will be entirely vindicated.”
Adramatic hit: Another Sundance veteran winning raves at the fest, along with a sweet distribution deal and 2017 Oscar buzz, is playwright and filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan, who was last here 16 years ago with his breakout debut You Can Count on Me.
His new drama Manchester by the Sea premiered to ecstatic applause over the weekend, despite its grim story about a broken family man, Casey Affleck’s grief-stricken Lee Chandler.
A taciturn Boston handyman always on the verge of exploding, Chandler returns to his Massachusetts hometown to deal with a sudden family death that will reopen old wounds. Lonergan’s use of flashbacks to reveal Chandler’s tragic backstory is jarring at first, as are the occasional comic moments, but they’re part of his master plan of slow character revelation, which unfolds with devastating impact.
Affleck is being touted here as sure bet for best actor consideration for the 2017 Oscars, and I concur. Pundits will also want to consider Lucas Hedges ( Moonrise Kingdom), who plays Chandler’s rebellious nephew, and Michelle Williams, who helps keep this very male drama from testosterone overdose in her role as Chandler’s ex-wife.
A distribution bidding war for Manchester by the Sea erupted following Saturday’s world premiere, with industry trades later reported a $10 million (U.S.) deal with Amazon.
Sundancing: I’m still trying to figure out this puzzling announcement Sunday by a Sundance authority figure at the doors to the Eccles Theatre, as we shuffled in for the 9 a.m. screening of Love & Friendship: “Please do not save seats!” she said. “This actually prevents the person you’re saving a seat for from getting in.” How does this work? And how does Sundance know? Peter Howell’s book Movies I Can’t Live Without is now available in premium paperback through StarStore.ca/movies.