The Best Austen Movie Of All Time Is An Underrated Gem On Disney+

If you’re looking for something to fill the void between now and September’s very promising-looking Sense and Sensibility release, it might be time to give an underappreciated Lady Susan adaptation a go.

As a long-time Austen fan, my top two on-screen period versions have long been the basically-perfect 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice series and 2016′s Love And Friendship.

But while I think a lot of fans are with me on the BBC take, I’ve seen a lot less buzz around Whit Stillman’s masterpiece – despite its 96% Rotten Tomatoes score and multiple awards.

Perhaps that’s because the wild late-teens writing it’s based on is rarely read, though that, too, should be rectified IMO. 

The Love and Friendship movie is based on Lady Susan. I’m not really sure why it’s got the name; there is a story by Austen called Love and Friendship, but though it also features grasping, scheming women, the movie’s plot is clearly based on the “little-known novella”.

Still, the only thing that matters is our Suze. Played by Kate Beckinsale, she’s a ruthless, conniving, cruel and self-serving manipulator – who gets absolutely everything she’s ever wanted. 

The Regency marriage market, after all, had all of those traits too.

The book (well, epistolary novella) comes from the young, cynical mind of an Austen who isn’t as concerned about mass-market appeal as she is making her friends and family laugh. The movie feels similar. 

You will not swoon as Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett) brainlessly squawks the words “Church” and “Hill” around a terrified teen. Your knees won’t buckle when Susan’s friend, Alicia (Chloë Sevigny) sneaks around her older husband (Stephen Fry). 

Nor will you sigh longingly when you watch the recently-widowed Lady Susan backstab her way to that sweetest of lovers: solvency.

But you will howl laughing at the absurdity of all of this – the brutal weaponisation of manners, gentlemanly duty, and less-than-gentlemanly urges.

That’s because at her heart, Austen knows love is stupidly simple and very complex. It’s the silliest and most serious topic in the world, and in both her and Stillman’s hands, it becomes the funniest, too.

Love and Friendship is available on Disney+.