Love & Friendship

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With the current rating at seven which I have seen before the film, I thought that the film would be a good one, but I was wrong. This is not a good film ( for me). Although I do like films with similar settings and I do liked the films which seems to be more of a theatre plays than actual films, this one was ... rather boring, not really entertaining, not funny at all ( as the film poster and some critics said), quite rushed ( if I may say) and you do not really get to understand the motives behind some of the characters moves. And that rococco /baroque music was not really fitting in my opinion. As for the actors/acting... as I mentioned, the film is close to a theatre play, so, yes, the actors were kinda good for a piece of theatre but for the film... not so sure. I would only recommend to watch this if you really really do not have anything else to watch. It is not entirely boring and uninteresting, but it is far from an entertaining piece. My rating is four ( though it may deserves a star more).

The funniest character in the film is James Martin. He steals every scene he's in and each time he was on the screen I couldn't stop laughing. Unfortunately, he isn't in a lot of the film, and the rest of the movie's humor comes in the form of pithy one liners at the end of every scene. Sometimes I'd chuckle at those, but that'd be about it. There aren't any weak links in the cast, they all do a great job with what they're given, but I wish they were given something better. The movie moves at an incredibly slow pace, and with not a lot ever going on, it often feels like I'm being read a Jane Austen novel rather than watching a movie adaptation. The movie isn't "bad" by any means but there's so little going for it that I would consider noteworthy I can't really find myself ever wanting to sit through Love & Friendship again. Maybe if you absolutely LOVE period dramas from a design standpoint or are a huge Jane Austen fan, you'll get more out of this movie than I did, but otherwise there isn't much here.

Perhaps this is a movie that only Jane Austen fans can love. I like Jane Austen but I don't like this movie. The non-acting aspects of the movie were superb, and the acting overall was fine. My problems with the movie is the story itself and the director's lack of imagination with it. The movie reflects that, as an early work of Jane Austen, it was not very sophisticated. The writing and directing did not improve on it. In effect, the movie was built on a series of tedious soliloquies by Lady Susan. The only suspense was provided by not knowing which plot elements were real or Lady Susan's fabricated illusions. After a while I realized that I was giving too much benefit to Lady Susan for fabricating illusions. She was clever but not that clever. Her cunning strategies--and the plot--mostly had a short-term horizon that never extended past the next scene. I want to find the book and read it because I can't believe that it had some of the serious defects that the film showed. Most notably, what has been a friendly relation abruptly transformed to a discussion of marriage. I thought I had missed some bridging aspect of the dialogue but checked with my companions after the movie and they had been mystified too. I have a sense that a bridging scene was left on the editing room floor and no one noticed the abrupt change of pace. The conclusion of the movie came too suddenly. Just was it seemed there would be another act, the house lights came on and the movie was over. I got the sense that Jane Austen ran out of ideas for the story, perhaps got bored with it, and so quickly tied up the loose ends. To restate, the non-acting aspects of the movie were superb, and the acting itself was fine, per se. Perhaps there wasn't much material for a great movie in the original Jane Austen work, but the movie I saw could have been a lot better. I think the directing killed the potential for great acting and killed movie overall.

There's something very satisfying about a period piece that actually feels like a film that lives in another time and place. While Love & Friendship certainly isn't the thinker or entertainer that most of the films released in May, it has its fair share of laughs and uses its gorgeous locales and famous source material to its benefit as much as it can. I don't consider myself the avid Jane Austen reader or fan of the media adaptations. In fact, I usually don't care for them much at all, but with rave reviews and a heavier reliance on comedy than romance, I decided to give Love & Friendship a shot. For the most part, it's an enjoyable film. I don't know how closely the writers attempted to stay to Austen's work, but one of the main issues to the film is the overabundance of characters. We are introduced to almost every single character within the first few minutes via opening credits, and it became overwhelming as a viewer. I caught on to the characters after a while, but trying to remember everyone's names was quite the challenge, especially when they all talk, dress, and look relatively the same. With that said, it's far and away Kate Beckinsale's film as she plays the infamous Lady Susan Vernon. The story mainly focuses on Vernon's attempt to give her daughter and herself a new match, after being recently widowed. If not for anything else, Love & Friendship is entertaining just to purely watch Lady Susan manipulate just about everyone she crosses. The beauty being that you don't truly know if she's being manipulative or sincere, which is why the abundance of characters actually works in the film's favor. Distracting the audience with new characters scene to scene keeps our attention away from what Susan is up to, hence surprising us with the next reveal. I can't say I was all that invested in the story itself, as it sometimes falls under the clichéd-romantic genre, but watching Beckinsale and the others have fun with the source material proved to be worth a viewing. I also appreciated the film's keen sense of humor at just the right moments. There are moments when the comedy could steer towards over-the-top, but veteran director Whit Stillman kept it from getting out of hand. In all, if you're into Jane Austen or period piece romantic dramas in general, Love & Friendship is probably for you. If not, perhaps the humor and performances can reel you in. +Timely humor +Fun performances +Witty writing -A lot of characters can muddle the plot at times 7.0/10

It's a mystery how so many film experts agreed on calling this a very good film. I am puzzled by how different a film can be perceived. After 20 minutes or so I was expecting some twist and turns that would impact the narrative of the film. And I waited and waited but in vain... I felt bored... Luckier people than me found some funny scenes once in a while. I didn't, so it became a pain to keep watching a film that didn't entertain me in one single frame. The settings were nice and I don't need black teeth and dirty clothes to make a film more realistic. That aspect of Love and Friendship was good for me. Lucky enough, this "film-disappointments" don't happen too often in my life and I would only recommend this film to someone very (very!) interested in English literature... You are warned...

Even though I've never heard of this story/novella, I enjoy Jane Austen's most famous novels and loved some of the film versions so I figured this would be worthwhile. Unfortunately, despite beautiful costumes and set decoration, this film was incredibly dull. None of the characters was particularly engaging and the endless snarky dialog delivered in a civilized manner became tiresome after a while. Small crowd in my theater with a group of women who laughed hysterically at every put-down delivered by the leading ladies but I was bored silly and, despite a meager run time, found myself checking my watch on too many occasions. There was not one character that was likable or anyone that I rooted for. I was happy when the film ended but also surprised as everything just sort of shut down. I wondered what the point of the entire film had been.

Although I have enjoyed most other film adaptations of Jane Austin's novels, Love and Friendship left me decisively unimpressed. Its plot is fairly silly and it contains too many poorly developed characters. Even the more important characters are merely caricatures about whose richly gilded but silly lives I came to care not at all. There were a few unexpectedly clever lines of dialogue but not enough to hold my interest for 90 minutes. We have seen the eras' manners and morals portrayed many times before and this adaptation has nothing new to offer. Had I wandered into the theater without a companion, I would have slinked out after half an hour. It is not a terrible movie but it does not live up to its literary pretensions. I suspected that Ms. Austin would have been embarrassed to learn that such a slight work has gained such attention.

I have complicated feelings regarding Whit Stillman. "Metropolitan" and "The Last Days of Disco" were great films. "Barcelona" was OK, not spectacular. "Damsels in Distress" was awful, and was justifiably panned. I had high hopes for "Love & Friendship" after both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald gave it good reviews. Sadly, it was not the return to form I was hoping for from Stillman. Yes, the dialogue was good and the acting was uniformly strong but the story was silly and not involving. I know that with a Stillman film you're not getting strict realism but the film was far too implausible for my liking. Also, Chloe Sevigny was totally wasted in a part that gave her nothing to do. Disappointed.

The most boring Jane Austin adaptation I have ever seen. This movie was not about love and friendship but about a despicable woman who sleeps around and lies and sets a poor example for her daughter. What a joke to say this was a high rated film. We almost walked out. The only part of the movie that was "lively" was the dancing. The humor in the movie was rather idiotic as was the person portraying the idiot, though splendidly. I don't want to suffer through any more movies like this in the future. There are too many choices out there for me and this was a bad one. I have seen a lot of Jane Austin film's and this was the very worst I have ever seen.