20 great movies from the past 20 years: Love & Friendship

I’m counting down to the 2025 best-of-the-year season by recommending 20 of my favorite movies from the past 20 years. Here are the previous entries, if you want to catch up:

2005: Caché
2006: Undisputed II: Last Man Standing
2007: Sunshine
2008: Speed Racer
2009: Vengeance
2010: Unstoppable
2011: The Three Musketeers
2012: Eega
2013: Rope A Dope
2014: Hill of Freedom
2015: SPL 2: A Time for Consequences

Today’s pick is another one that I have a vivid memory of seeing in a small theater in DC – Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship, a riotously funny Jane Austen adaptation that came out in 2016. 

While Austen wrote a story called Love and Freindship [sic] as a teenager, this is actually an adaptation of her epistolary novella Lady Susan, written a few years later and never submitted for publication. Set in 1790s London, it follows Lady Susan (Kate Beckinsale), “the most accomplished flirt in all of England,” and her many schemes to find a wealthy husband for herself and her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark).

Shortly after the death of her husband, Lady Susan is kicked out of the Manwaring estate because of her flirtations with the married Lord Manwaring, so she travels with her unpaid companion to stay with her late husband’s brother Charles and his family at Churchill, their country home. Charles’s wife, Catherine, hates Lady Susan because of a prior attempt to thwart Charles and Catherine’s engagement (Lady Susan thinks Catherine should get over it, because the plan failed anyway). But Catherine’s younger brother, Reginald, finds himself enthralled with Lady Susan’s charm, beauty, and unstoppable confidence.

Soon after, Frederica arrives at Churchill, followed by Sir James (Tom Bennett), a well-meaning wealthy fool who wishes to marry her. But she doesn’t want to be with Sir James, and starts to fall for the more age-appropriate Reginald instead – much to the dismay of Lady Susan, who has grown fond of Reginald’s attention.

The whole movie revolves around Beckinsale’s magnetic performance as Lady Susan. She imbues the character with enough self-assuredness to fill a room, and her constant schemes are endlessly entertaining. She believes she can never make a mistake (re: the distraught Lady Manwaring, “If she were to be jealous she shouldn’t have married such a charming man”), and anyone upset about her behavior is being rude or unbecoming.

In other movies, with other tones, and with other leads, this kind of character, who considers herself superior to everyone else, could come across as unbearable. But it works perfectly in Love & Friendship, partly because of Whit Stillman’s comedic tone and whipsmart dialogue, and largely because of Beckinsale’s performance.

Lady Susan’s calculating and layered schemes weaponize societal and gender norms that would normally be to her detriment, instead employing them to her benefit. She is trying to live her life in the way she wants, and has to battle against restrictive expectations to do so – while still keeping her own restrictive expectations on her daughter, saying the sometimes quiet parts of these stories out loud about a child’s duties to their parents. Lady Susan is a diabolical genius who one character says is “like the serpent in Eden’s garden.” Society is her battleground, and words are her weapons – even when she misquotes the Bible, she does it with enough confidence that people go along with her.

The other standout is Tom Bennett (House of the Dragon) as the wealthy fool Sir James. He’s a bit like if David Mitchell played a Colin Firth character – he’s upbeat and talkative, well-mannered and kind-hearted, speaks extremely loudly, and is incredibly stupid. He arrives late at Churchill because he was looking for a church and/or a hill and couldn’t find either. He is served peas for the first time, plays with them with a knife, and proclaims “how jolly! Tiny green balls.” He cites God’s “12 commandments,” and when someone else points out there are only 10, he replies “Only 10 must be obeyed? That’s excellent. Which two to take off?” and starts running through them to pick which commandment he’d rather not deal with. He’s the funniest character in an outrageously funny movie. Bennett sells all of these lines with enthusiasm and a genuineness that makes the character simultaneously a reliable punchline and surprisingly charming.

Other highlights include Chloë Sevigny as Alicia Johnson, Lady Susan’s American friend who, as an audience stand-in of sorts, eats up all of the gossip and drama. She truly seems to just want to know where all this is going. Her husband (Setphen Fry), is less enthused, and Lady Susan quips to Alicia “What a mistake you made, marrying Mr. Johnson. Too old to be governable, too young to die.” The period costuming and sets are also gorgeous, and the movie is accompanied by an appropriately jaunty orchestral score.

There are other playful touches brought by Stillman’s directorial approach. Characters are introduced in a spotlight, with their name and a summary of their character’s defining traits or relationships displayed on the screen (“A divinely attractive man,” “his wealthy wife,” “A bit of a ‘Rattle’”). These introductions are shown in movement, not still images, allowing for more character with expressions and gestures. Stillman’s direction is generally light and comedic, and he says he took inspiration from the Steve Martin movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. It shows – there are many great Austen adaptations, but few quite as fun and funny as Love & Friendship.

Love & Friendship is streaming on Prime Video.