Jane Austen Done Right

by Cláudio Alves

Recently, Nathaniel reviewed Netflix's Persuasion adaptation, pointing out many of the film's issues. That said, our beloved editor is not an Austenite, so his critique lacks the militant outrage you could expect from the writer's biggest fans. Speaking as one of those demented individuals, I found the latest adaptation to be terrible beyond belief, starting from its basic premise. After all, why would one choose Austen's most melancholic, wistful, and mature novel for this Fleabag-esque treatment full of anachronistic jokes and fourth-wall-breaking jests? Isn't something like Northanger Abbey better suited for such an interpretation? The whole thing is a panoply of bad choices.

Still, while the new movie is terrible, the impulse to modernize Jane Austen's writing isn't necessarily wrong-headed. One just has to understand each text's particularities. The author's work is eminently cinematic and quite malleable when handled well. To prove its endless plasticity, here's a list of Austen-related films that took wildly disparate approaches to the material… 

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What's the best Jane Austen movie adaptation?

by Cláudio Alves

Jane Austen is one of the most celebrated authors in the English language. Fittingly, many of her works have been adapted into films. This year, we got another Emma, which to many felt like an improvement upon the previous major adaptation of the novel, the one starring Gwyneth Paltrow and a desperately funny Toni Collette.

But which Austen cinematic adaptation is the best of them all?  For clarity's sake and a vague sense of fairness, modernized versions of the author's storylines were disqualified from this race for the title of best Jane Austen movie. So, don't expect Clueless to make an appearance despite its genius. Of course, even without Amy Heckerling's 90s teen classic, it was difficult to whittle down the list of films enough to name the three best... 

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FYC: Best Adapted Screenplay, Love & Friendship

By Tim

Over the course of 21 years and four features, Whit Stillman's dominant themes as a storyteller have remained steady: an affectionate contempt for the economically and intellectually well-off and their aspirations to become even better; and a love of using language as a dueling weapon, with characters using dialogue as a means of asserting superiority and dominance. In both of these respects, we might say that he's always been making Jane Austen movies. For what are Austen's books, if not loving but merciless dissections of the social codes of the upper-middle-class of her own world?

The marriage of Stillman and Austen was thus as inevitable as it proves to be welcome with Love & Friendship, which nobody could recklessly call "the best" Austen adaptation ever. But it might be the most Austen-esque...

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The Furniture: Love & Friendship's Country Charm

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber...

Chirp.Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) finds the countryside boring. She’d much rather be in London, safe from her daughter and her other dull relations. Yet she’s broke and bound by obligation to spend time at a large country estate. This is the central problem of Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship, a delightful adaptation of Jane Austen’s Lady Susan.

The estate in question is Churchill, the home of her brother-in-law Charles Vernon and his wife, Catherine Vernon (nee DeCourcy). Granted, as the amusingly dim-witted Sir James Martin points out, there appears to be neither church nor hill on the property. Instead there is only period-appropriate finery and some very subtle efforts to manipulate audience loyalty.

Production designer Anna Rackard and art directors Louise Mathews and Bryan Tormey go about this with great care. 

Lady Susan is a selfish, scheming character whose relatives almost certainly deserve more of our sympathy. Yet she’s the protagonist, and also quite funny. We can’t be allowed to tire of her too quickly. And so the production design team emphasizes a point on which many of us can agree with Lady Susan: The countryside is the worst...

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Podcast: Love & Friendship, Neighbors & Apocalypse

Katey is back! Our very pregnant team member returns to discuss a few new movies with Nathaniel, Nick, and Joe and catch up.

Index (43 minutes)
00:01 Katey is back!!!
02:36 Money Monster
11:30 X-Men Apocalypse
23:36 Love & Friendship
31:28 Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
42:05 Goodbyes

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes tomorrow. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?  

Neighbors 2, Apocalypse, Love & Friendship