He's passed the plumb title role (a socialite of Marquise de Merteuil level conniving) to his one-time muse, Kate Beckingsale, and the role of her ex-pat American confidante, Mrs Alicia Johnson, to his other one-time muse, Chloë Sevigny. The two reign supreme over his gorgeously precise production, Kate with acidic social aggrandisement and Chloë with stone-faced comic judgement.
The last time we saw these two together they were again in front of Stillman's camera, chatting, ceaselessly and self-consciously at the disco. Chatting ceaselessly and self-consciously has always been Stillman's thing and for a long time Chloë and Kate have ranked high amongst his finest practitioners. They're less self-conscious here; they're older, more assured, as is Stillman, whose directorial hand shows unprecedented steel behind its fey comedy.
Beckingsale is undeniably the star draw. She works Lady Susan into a marvel of two-faced egoism and centres her with such august presence that her creation of Stillman’s creation of Austen’s creation is irresistibly absorbing. It is impossible not to be root for her even though her actions are downright despicable. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get to share all that much screen time with her literary foil (Mrs Johnson is ostensibly kept apart from Lady Susan's corrupting influence by her husband, played with wind-bag straight-lacedness by Stephen Fry) but their bond is assured in an unending (and endlessly delightful) train of duplicitous complicity.
The objects of Lady Susan’s Machiavellian scheming are a set of husbands (for her and her apparently bloodless daughter, Frederica, played plainly by Morfydd Clark) and lovers (for her), with one man not necessarily having to take on both roles. Needless to say, the young men, who vary in their eligibility, intelligence and gullibility, provide sufficient scope to riff off Austen’s stalwart themes of duty, social pretence and transactional romanticism.
In this, Stillman hits closer to the mark than most. He places Lady Susan in a spotlight that her cuts-too-close-to-home actions didn’t encourage in Austen’s own time. Her businesslike manoeuvring and sexual espionage reveals the past to be not so dissimilar to our present. It is a welcome through-line for the material which Stillman capitalises on with grace.
The freedom he has granted himself in structuring the (relatively) unstructured source material has translated into an adaptation littered with characters and sub-plots so well fleshed-out that they leap from the screen as if written by Austen herself. In fact, Stillman took so ferociously to the task of dramatising 'Lady Susan''s letters that he's gone on and written a separate novelisation of the work. It is this thorough and very loving grounding that beams through Love and Friendship and gives the characters lives behind the façade-like existences previously presented to us by Austen, second-hand.
When all is said and done, Stillman and Austen are a match so pragmatically advantageous it would make Emma Woodhouse proud. In Love and Friendship Stillman has delivered a real crossover, an adaptation that welcomes long-term devotees with his trademark quick-witted stiltedness and invites new acolytes through an adroit presentation of Austen’s own.
Now, if he could only drum up a sequel…
★★★★
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