She shows up at Churchill and is followed by admiring Sir James Martin, who is as foolish as he is rich. In the interim, Frederica runs away and gets expelled from the boarding school her mother cannot afford. Should you have frequented it more, you’d know the astonishing degree of vile, hateful jealousy in our country.“ He poignantly tells his father “I know you spend little time in society. Charles stands up for her and against the calumnies spoken about her.

Not that I would ever think in opportunistic terms.” Her brother-in-law’s wife – Catherine – is wary of Lady Susan’s reputation, and despite her apprehensions, her own brother – Charles – starts to be smitten with Lady Susan. “Well, in one’s plight, they say, is one’s opportunity. “I have no money and no husband,” she tells Mrs. Cross head towards her brother-in-law’s estate to plot a way to get a suitable match for her young daughter Frederica as well as for herself. The fun begins when recently widowed Lady Susan has to abruptly depart from the Manwaring estate because she encouraged the attentions of the married Lord Manwaring. This is playful entertainment, artfully crafted and performed, but without self-conscious artiness. Stillman makes it less of a stately costume piece and more of frolicking con artist movie – think “The Sting” or “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” – but this time around we have Lady Susan and her confidante and accomplice Mrs. It is adapted and directed by urbane satirist auteur Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan,” “Barcelona”) from a short epistolary Austen novel entitled “Lady Susan.” He borrowed the title from another unrelated early work because it would tie in with other well-known projects like “Pride & Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility.” There’s such vitality and a crackling sense of fun in his handling of this material. What’s truly emboldening about watching this work is how you’re aware that the world is constantly changing – and that we should all learn from Lady Susan, and her stratagems to take control of change. It hit me that the past seven months cannot be fully described as ‘living’ – but we’ve been ‘visiting’ this new way of going about our days that doesn’t fully feel tangible. The precarious state she speaks about – the sort of limbo in which Austen female characters find themselves until they’re married to a man – feels like such a strong parallel to our status. It is based on a posthumously published novella by my unofficial poet laureate of 2020 – Jane Austen.

Those words are spoken by Lady Susan in the wickedly good “Love and Friendship” (2016). “Dear, our present comfortable state is at the most precarious sort.

Whit stillman love and friendship