Love & Friendship (2016)

That was an excellent one.

How sad is this?

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

A witty script with Lady Susan deftly moving the other characters around seemingly to her will like chess pieces. Susan is impeccably played by Kate Beckinsale with plenty other fine performances, standouts perhaps Chloe Sevigny and Tom Bennett. A short and sweet treat.

In the 1790s, Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) is recently widowed. As this new marital status had reduced her status and wealth, she must depend on the hospitality of friends and relatives. Considering her devious charms (which contribute to an ongoing affair with a married man), this makes Susan's hosts rather hesitant to take her in - at least the female ones. The film is based on the short novel "Lady Susan" by Jane Austen.At first, it seems difficult to keep track of the many characters. Director Whit Stillman helps by providing introduction panels at the beginning which not only identify each character but sometimes provide some comical information about them. From there on, it gets easier and one can enjoy the ride of this witty and entertaining film.Two performances stand out. Beckinsale succeeds beautifully as a demon with charm and charisma to spare. Her deliveries of Austen's great lines are sharp indeed. The other great performance comes from Tom Bennett as a man whose ample financial means cannot compensate for his lack of grey matter. He steals every scene in which he appears especially the one involving a discussion of the Ten Commandments.With perfect costumes, set pieces, and other fine production values, this is rather an enjoyable film.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, so much that after my first screening I watched it day after day after day for about a week. It's funny, charming, and boasts beautiful costumes and scenery. The acting is stellar.On the other hand, this is an artsy flick, and so if you're not into that kind of thing then you probably won't like it. I did. But even I had to be in the right mood to really "get" it.Unfortunately, it's hard to know going into it how you're going to respond, whether you will like it or hate it, and so forth. I expected to be only mildly entertained and was delighted to be surprised with what I can only describe as a masterpiece of period art and comedy. But that's me, and I can definitely see how other people may not appreciate this film to the same degree.All I can say is, try it and see what you think. Many of you will fall in love with it, like I did, while many others will hate it for its pretensions. But it's a fine film and well worth a shot.

Lady Susan Vernon takes up temporary residence at her in-laws' estate and, while there, is determined to be a matchmaker for her daughter Frederica -- and herself too, naturally. I love Kate Beckinsale as an actress but my god this film was awful first of all both the actors and the characters are boring and their stories weren't even that interesting. The humor was dumber than a rock it's basically that boring and straight face English humor that most of this films use in general and believe me it's not good. The plot is also not that interesting either i mean common, am i supposed to care about a woman who tries to marry her daughter but also find someone of her own haven't we seen that before like millions of times? This is without a doubt Kate Beckinsale's worst film and unfortunately another example of how bad critics are. (0/10)