Whit Stillman directs this new film of Jane Austen’s posthumously published novella originally titled Lady Susan. What have critics been saying about it?
The Guardian: ***** Peter Bradshaw said: “Love & Friendship is a refreshing and invigorating delight.”
Evening Standard:***** David Sexton thought: “It’s pitch-perfect, beautifully poised, faithfully honouring the original while brilliantly dramatising and completing it, converting letters into dialogue with admirable adroitness.”
The Telegraph: ***** Tim Robey wrote: “it’s one of the deftest feats of literary interpolation in ages.”
The New York Times: “Love & Friendship is howlingly funny, and as a whole it feels less like a romance than like a caper, an unabashedly contrived and effortlessly inventive heist movie with a pretty good payoff.”
Slash Film: “Love & Friendship isn’t the story of a wicked woman getting her just desserts, but one of a genius doing what she does best — which in this case happens to be playing other people (men in particular) like fiddles to get what she wants.”
The Financial Times: **** Nigel Andrews summed the film up by calling it: “A fresh, funny and poignant Jane Austen adaptation.”
The Independent: ***** “Beckinsale gives an enrapturing performance as a femme fatale in this superbly droll reworking of Lady Susan.”
The Quietus: “Love And Friendship might be a sprightly retreat into the Regency era, yet this coming together of Austen’s prose and Stillman’s delightfully droll aesthetic is a marriage made in heaven.”
The Upcoming:**** “Delightfully astute in 18th century etiquette, Stillman’s screenplay dances with Austen’s tradition and elevates it through quick wit and on-point timing.”
The Skinny: ***** “Kate Beckinsale shines in Whit Stillman’s delightful Jane Austen adaptation.”
Empire: ***** “The funniest, most deliciously venomous Jane Austen movie ever made.”
Culture Whisper: **** ” Love & Friendship is a welcome comment on Austen’s society, Austen’s writing, and a fabulous star vehicle for Kate Beckinsale.”
Love & Friendship is out in cinemas now.