Love & Friendship

Lady Susan Vernon: Facts are horrid things.

Lady Susan Vernon is beautiful, clever, and a catastrophe for social equilibrium. Newly widowed and in financial trouble, she moves in with relatives in order to marry off her daughter — and herself at the same time. With sharp intellect and a sharper tongue, she manipulates everyone around her, juggles suitors and intrigues, and always manages to remain just a touch more elegant than anyone else.

Director Whit Stillman (the prince of the cosmopolitan, intellectual hang-out film) adapts Jane Austen’s early work Lady Susan with speed, wit, and a keen sense for the absurdity of courtly maneuvers. Kate Beckinsale shines as Lady Susan — a heroine who has no desire to be one — delivering a performance that balances calculated malice with charming self-confidence. The film thrives on its dialogue, so polished it could cut glass.