Jane Austen

Deceived in Friendship and Betrayed in Love (Love & Friendship review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

My first real exposure to effective satire came from reading Gulliver’s Travels in high school. In some ways I’m embarrassed to admit this now because I wonder what more I could have learned and accomplished had I been exposed to this type of writing from an earlier age. After all, it is something I value and can appreciate for it’s nuanced and artful nature.

And yet, I’ve made other mistakes by consciously avoiding other authors who are just as capable of striking at these tropes. See exhibit A, for example.

 

 

 

Love & Friendship (2016)

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Chloë Sevigny, Xavier Samuel
Director: Whit Stillman
released on blu-ray September 6, 2016
********* 9/10

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IMDB: 6.9
Rotten Tomatoes: 98%, Audience Score 66%
The Guardian: ****/*****

John Whitney “Whit” Stillman is an American writer-director best known for his 1990 film Metropolitan (also his first film), but secondarily for his rather limited number of films released between 1990 and now. To be very clear, Stillman has only directed a total of five films altogether, however each of them have been rather favourable with critics and audiences alike.

Some would argue that The Last Days of Disco was his weakest film, but at 72% on Rotten Tomatoes and lead by Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny, I suspect that those people don’t know what they’re talking about.

Let’s consider Love & Friendship. A film rather clever in it’s machinations and based on two separate Jane Austen novels.

It tells the story of recently widowed and rather young Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) as she looks for both a match for her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) and also for herself, that she might bolster her own status and fortunes. Lady Susan was staying at the Manwaring estate for some time before she was finally turned out, under assumptions that her and Lord Manwaring (Lochlann O’Mearáin) were having an affair.

So Lady Susan moves into Churchill and stays with her brother-in-law, Charles Vernon (Justin Edwards), and his wife Catherine (Emma Greenwell). Catherine’s brother Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel) is also there, and eventually Frederica is turned out of boarding school because Susan can’t afford it, so she joins the family too.

This is where we witness Lady Susan bend societal expectations and twist words so that she can always gain the upper hand. When she is unable to convince her daughter to marry the dumb but wealthy Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), and especially after her flirtations with Reginald turn sour upon his discovery of her relations with Lord Manwaring despite Lady Susan and her best friend Alicia Johnson’s (Chloë Sevigny) efforts to conceal the matter. Instead, Lady Susan convinces Martin to marry her, and conveniently enough Reginald and Frederica marry on their own terms.

The movie hits a high and final important note upon the announcement not two days after the wedding of Martin and Lady Susan. Lady Susan is with child, and Sir James couldn’t be happier. Interestingly enough, Lady Susan had previously invited Lord Manwaring to be a house guest at her new home with Sir James, and Sir James is happy to have a new friend who enjoys hunting all kinds of game.

Pros: The language of the time is handled by Stillman in the best way possible, Kate Beckinsale holds court in whatever scene she is in, and all of the secondary characters fill their roles in expertly timed scenes.

Cons: I fear that the intelligence of the film and all of it’s nuances might be missed by the more casual observer, making it appear boring, when in fact the dialogue and pacing are incredibly important to the overall plot.

Runtime: 1 hour 32 minutes

Points of Interest: This is the first time the novella Lady Susan has made it to the silver screen, with the name taken from the other referenced Austen book. Sienna Miller was originally cast as the role of Lady Susan but she dropped out.

I’ll be the first to admit that it took me years to warm up to Jane Austen as an author. I was never really interested in the stories because of their focus on social politics and economics of the time, but the truth is that those are just elements of the story, the real value lies in the characterizations, and when a director like Stillman can understand that point, the work of Jane Austen can reach pop culture snobs like moi.

 

 

 

Satire can be a wonderful thing friends, it can take a story entrenched in adultery, manipulation, and betrayal, and turn it into something that you can share with children. Love & Friendship never exposes the gratuitousness so common in our westernized culture, but yet it tells a story so much better. I was a little concerned when I first picked this film up, but thankfully I was wrong about it. And you will be too.

This film is wonderfully done, and exemplifies the power of Jane Austen as a writer, and really showcases her necessity in the halls of writing. Go watch this movie. And then come back tomorrow when I’ll talk some more of love.

Tim!

Ermahgerd Mershed Perderders (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Mashups can be fun, if you take the right mix of levity and appreciation for each facet, then you can make it work in your favour. Whether it is a song, a movie, a comic book, a video game, it doesn’t matter, as long you know your source material and come at it with fun, research, and actual passion, it’ll get through.

But when you dial it in, just for the property rights, then your mashup will suck. Period.

 

 

 

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (2014)

Cast: Lily James, Sam Riley, Jack Huston, Bella Heathcote, Lena Headey, Charles Dance, Sally Phillips, Matt Smith
Director: Burr Steers
released on blu-ray May 31, 2016
***** 5/10

P&P&Z

IMDB: 5.8
Rotten Tomatoes: 42%, Audience Score 47%
The Guardian: **/*****

Burr Steers is an American screenwriter, director, and sometimes actor. He has been involved in a few Tarantino movies as an actor, and has directed film like Igby Goes Down, 17 Again, and Charlie St. Cloud. Which is why I find it interesting that he decided to direct Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, henceforth known as PPZ in the rest of my review.

And I just might have an addiction to silly movie premises. I bought Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Wolfcop, and now PPZ mostly because I liked the idea of a good mashup, but the reality is that often these horror movie crossovers don’t pull the trigger, and leave you with powder in hand, so-to-speak.

Which is where PPZ ultimately ends up, and in the final third of the movie too.

Now, I have to decide if it is even worthwhile to explain the premise of the movie to you, given that it’s a mashup of an established and well known book with some zombie thrills.

So I’ve decided to sum it up rather easily for you, zombies are injected throughout the story in small portions, but it is not until Elizabeth spends some private time with Wickham, and before the reveal that he used Darcy’s family money and tried to squander it via eloping with Darcy’s sister that we see the story twist. But this is because this is a parody of Pride and Prejudice, and Wickham is also secretly a zombie himself, wanting to have treaty with the humans and set up a high position for himself and his fellow zombies who live off of animal parts.

Inevitably the movie ends up with Wickham on the side of bad, capturing Lydia, and Darcy coming in to the save the day. Then Elizabeth confesses her love for Darcy and there is a double wedding. Neat and tidy, and in line with the original.

The truth is that the story feels muddy, and the mythology is interesting but also confused and in some ways forced upon us. There will be gaps without zombies, and then the zombies come back in but with tremendous effort on the part of the characters to justify the zombies place in their world.

Pros: Despite or because of the premise, the movie is full of cheese and fun, poking at the action genre and gender roles, both within the source material and in action films. And if you’re a horror fan it’ll make the original material less boring for you.

Cons: It never feels like it’s confident in what it is trying to sell us. The movie starts off interestingly enough, but the action grows stale and the twist is not alluring enough.

Runtime: 1 hour 47 minutes

Points of Interest: Natalie Portman was originally cast as Elizabeth Bennet but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. All of the Bennet sisters did their own stunts for the movie.

The opening sequence promises us that the Georgian period we know so well is in fact one of nightmares. With the rich learning Eastern disciplines in combat so that they might fight off the zombie terror. But the problem is that we never get to see them sweat or earn their abilities, and so the combat immediately feels contrived. That and the already mentioned mythology make it a fun popcorn movie, but not much else.

PPZ is not the worst mashup I have ever come across, but it’s not the best either. It middles about and hopes to get away with it, on the premise that teenagers and fans of the ridiculous will take it in. You have to decide yourself it this movie was made out of pride or prejudice, but I’m pretty confident that it wasn’t made for zombies. But that’s just a theory.

Tim!