The eagerly awaited film LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP opens in Dallas on May 20, 2016!  The movie is an adaptation of young Jane Austen’s unfinished novella Lady Susan, believed to have been written in the mid 1790’s but revised and published by her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, in 1871.

Love and Friendship takes place in England in the 1790’s, and features the beautiful, notorious but poor widow Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale).  It begins with her abrupt visit to Churchill, the estate of her in-laws who she barely knows.  She’s there because she has no place to live and to lay low while the rumors about her scandalous affairs (with a married man no less) die down.  While there she continues to spin her web on her next prey, this time on the young handsome and eligible bachelor Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel) who is her in-law’s brother.  She’s also dead set on securing a husband – the very rich Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett) for her young and rebellious daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark).   What ensues is a most delightful story told through the creative eyes of Screenplay Writer and Director Whit Stillman.You can’t take your eyes off of Kate Beckinsale throughout the movie.  Not only is she beautiful to look at, but her monologues are absolutely brilliant. She walks the line between being a perfect English lady while she’s flirting with scandal and deceiving everyone in her path.  Chloe Sevigny, who plays her American friend Alicia Johnson, is well-casted as one of Lady Susan’s only friends and confidante.  Tom Bennett’s character Sir James Martin is especially wonderful.  He doesn’t have a brain in his head and he will make you laugh out loud at some of the idiotic things he says.Love and Friendship is a joy to watch from beginning to end.  It’s a departure from most of Jane Austen’s novels and in Whit Stillman’s creative hands it’s a true delight.  Because the relationships between all the characters can become quite complicated  they are introduced in a funny and creative way in the beginning of the story which gives you a clue that this is going to be a different kind of Jane Austen film. Despite it being a period film it’s funny and fresh and you can’t wait to see what the conniving and absolutely brilliant Lady Susan will do next.

Grab some girlfriends and go indulge yourself in this wonderful new Jane Austen film.

Written & Directed by:

WHIT STILLMAN

Starring:

Kate Beckinsale, Xavier Samuel, Morfydd Clark, Emma Greenwell, Tom Bennett, James Fleet,Jemma Redgrave, Justin Edwards,  Jenn Murray, With Stephen Fry, and Chloë Sevigny