LOVE & FRIENDSHIP: Whit Stillman and Jane Austen prove a marriage made in heaven

How is it that Whit Stillman, the guy who's been giving us those dialog-heavy, manners-and-mores movies for 25 years, has only now seen fit to pair up with history's great dialog-heavy, manners-and-mores author, Jane Austen? Whatever the reason(s), the pairing has arrived at last, and audiences should consider themselves blessed. LOVE & FRIENDSHIP (the only thing ordinary is that mediocre title), based on Austen's early novella, Lady Susan, which was published after her death, is, I wager, the best filmed adaptation of Austen we've had so far. (And that would include a bevy of excellent films.)

As both adapter and director, Mr. Stillman, shown at left, not only captures Austen beautifully, he fills his film with such succulent, delicious dialog that we hang on every word, relish (almost) every character and bask in scene after scene of sheer delight. Yeah, I'm piling it on. But, hell, so has Stillman. He's given us the most sheerly enjoyable movie of the year so far, one that captures its period beautifully, while ladeling out a tale of betrayal and survival in which its very smart if not very nice protagonist shows us how to win the game of societal manners by outplaying literally everyone else in view.

Stillman has, with a single exception, cast his movie to perfection, as well, starting with his star, Kate Beckinsale (shown at right, above and below), who -- if you know her via the generally execrable Underworld franchise -- has here the role of a lifetime and plays it like the champion she so clearly is. Her Lady Susan, from one vantage point, is a conniving bitch. From another, she's simply doing what she must to ensure her and her daughter's future in a society that would like nothing better than to see them both brought down.

Ms Beckinsale embodies the role with enormous intelligence and wit. There's a sharpness, a keenness to her behavior that we've seldom seen in the actress. Her earlier roles had some of this, but here, as Austen's unusual heroine, she has the opportunity to make us marvel at her smarts and her daring, her beauty and her fortitude.

The supporting players that surround the actress are well-chosen too -- the most marvelous being the dunderheaded suitor played by Tom Bennett, (shown above, right), who has one of the funniest scenes in modern movies, as a character who has only just been introduced to... peas. If sublime comic timing, together with astute and original characterization, counted for anything in the Oscar race, you might see this actor walk away with a Best Supporting statue.

As Lady Susan's struggling-not-to-be-stifled daughter, Morffyd Clark (above) makes a most engaging impression -- obedient yet unwilling to be married off to someone for whom she feels nothing.

The one performance that leave something to be desired is that of Chloë Sevigny, above. She plays the only American in the bunch, and while it's lovely to see the two stars of Stillman's The Last Days of Disco together again, Ms Sevigny (an actress I usually like very much) simply can't keep up with her British or Australian co-stars in terms of speaking her dialog "trippingly on the tongue." Granted, it has been arranged that she play an American, but, still, when she's speaking onscreen, you want to say, "Come now, Chloë: chop, chop!" But this is hardly a deal-breaker.

In the other male supporting roles, Xavier Samuel, above, makes a fine romantic lead (for several female characters, actually), while James Fleet, below, left, does a thoughtful, feet-on-the-ground job as DeCourcy père. (That's Jemma Redgrave, at right, as mère.)

The filmmaker introduces us to all these characters in the lovely, old-fashioned way of using explanatory title cards at the film's beginning -- which is both stylish and helpful. And as Lady Susan was originally an epistolary tale, Stillman appropriately offers letters, the writing of and delivery of which, keeps the plot bouncing along.

I missed only a tad's worth of dialog, which moves very quickly here, so I plan to see this one again, just as soon as it appears on Blu-ray with English subtitles, so that we get every delicious word. Meanwhile, you can view it in theaters now (it opened two weeks ago in New York and Los Angeles, as Love & Friendship goes nationwide this Friday, May 27.

Here in South Florida, you can see it in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area at the AMC Aventura Mall 24, Cinepolis Grove 15, Coral Gables Art Cinema, O Cinema Miami Beach, Regal South Beach 18, AMC Sunset Place 24 and Gateway West. In the Palm Beach/Boca areas, it plays the Cinemark Palace 20, the Living Room Theaters, Regal's Shadowood 16, Boynton Beach 14, Movies of Delray, Cinepolis Jupiter 14, Cobb Theaters Downtown Gardens 16, and the Muvico Parisian 20 at CityPlace. Elsewhere around the country? Absolutely. Simply click here, enter your zip code and check out the local theaters that appear. (And, yes, that's the great Stephen Fry, shown at center, above.)

Whit Stillman breaks his filmmaking fast with the precious DAMSELS IN DISTRESS

What a treat, what an unalloyed delight is this new work from the of-late, a-movie-every-thirteen-years filmmaker Whit Stillman (shown below). His output may be small -- Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco -- but nobody makes movies like this guy's. Love 'em or hate 'em, you must admit that they're special.

In a unparalleled juxtaposition, due to a previously-scheduled movie outing with friends, TrustMovies ended up seeing The Hunger Games immediately after viewing DAMSELS IN DISTRESS. And while he knows that Damsels will take in maybe 1/10,000 of the box-office that Games does worldwide, he wouldn’t trade the former for all of the latter’s shlocky, mainstream movie-making ideas and effects. Damsels is so special and funny, sweet and smart, that it seems particularly odd, I think, that Stillman is still learning how to make movies. You can criticize everything from his 30-year-old-looking college students to the barely so-so dancing sequences, but that’s not the point. Nobody else is doing anything like what he does -- warts and all. (And sometimes those warts are there just so the filmmaker can sand them down by movie's end.)

It's his screenplay, and in particular his dialog, that is usually so trenchant -- and bizarre. In Damsels, more than in any of his other movies, he has created a kind of alternate universe that is quite unlike anything that exists: a college campus where frat boys are not simply crazy/stupid. Oh, they're that, but they are also sweet and kind and, without knowing it, longing for... so many things: intelligence, love, better hygiene and being able to know the differences between (and the names of) colors. Yes.

People talk a lot here (that's Hugo Becker, above, left, with Analeigh Tipton), and they say some very peculiar things. But in Stillman's universe, these things often begin to make sense. Imagine: People acting in their own best interests and accepting -- no, welcoming -- criticism. They're even able to bend a bit and change their ideas. They also understand that initiating a new dance craze may well be the pinnacle of their achievement, while offering the world something really useful. Well, you have to be there. And I hope you will. In my headline, I called this movie "precious." While it sometimes comes close to reflecting the negative use of that word, in the end  it is only the positive use, as in gem, that remains.

Stillman has always had a talent for using up-and-coming actors extremely well -- remember Chris Eigeman, Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny from his earlier work? Here he gives plum roles to the likes of Greta Gerwig,(above, left) Adam Brody (above, right) and Billy Magnussen (below, as Troy, pointing, with Carrie MacLemore). To say that they, and the rest of his choice cast, do his dialog and imagination justice is to praise them highly. And though Ms. Gerwig speaks that dialog as if it were all rather new to her, this has the effect of thoughts forming as the synapses snap. It works, and the actress emerges as a kind of conquering heroine, finding her way one step, and one phrase, at a time.

Oddly enough, I find much in common between Stillman and another director you'd probably never guess: Bobcat Goldthwaite. You could hardly ask for two more dissimilar movies than Damsels and God Bless America (Goldthwaite's latest, which arrives next month and will be covered here at length), but both these guys are true individualist moviemakers, with very definite ideas on the world and how it works (or how it ought to work). I would love to sit the two of them down together over coffee and hear what they talk about. (I wonder if either knows the other’s films?)

Megalyn Echikunwoke, as Rose, in Damsels in Distress

These two filmmakers could not be more different in many ways, and yet they’re telling us, I believe, some similar things. Whit creates the world he'd like to see, while Bobcat gets rid of the present one, for which he doesn't much care. While both have things to learn about film-making, both are also wonderful originals with something to say that's worth hearing. They make movie-going a surprise, a joy, and a jolt. Intellectually speaking, where humor is concerned, it doesn't get much better than that.

Caitlin Fitzgerald (left, as Priss), with Ryan Metcalf, as Frank 

Damsels in Distress, from Sony Pictures Classics -- which, in a "first" (if I'm not mistaken), has allowed its famous blue logo to take on an entirely different hue for this movie (Troy and Frank: Can you name the color, please?) -- opens this Friday, April 6, in New York (at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and Landmark's Sunshine Cinema) and in Los Angeles (at The Landmark, and later in the month at various Laemmle theaters). There will a limited nationwide roll-out over the weeks to come. Check the movie's web site during that time to discover where it might be playing near you.