I watched Love & Friendship when it was first released just because I love Kate Beckinsale and I love Jane Austen movies. I hadn't yet read Lady Susan, the unpublished novel it's based on, so my first opinion was that Love & Friendship was a minor entry in the Austen movie collection. I thought it was funny and charming, but not on the same level as my go-to Austen films: Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility, the 1995 Pride and Prejudice mini-series, and the Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow (Autumn de Wilde's version didn't exist yet, but it's very much one of my favorites today).
I liked Love & Friendship even more after reading Lady Susan. Since the novella tells the story through letters between the various characters - and pulls a lot of the humor from the differences between those letters - the film has to be funny in a different way. And impressively: it is.
I ding it a little for robbing Lady Susan of some comeuppance that she has coming to her. In the book, she settles for marrying herself to a rich idiot whom she'd planned on attaching to her daughter. It's clearly a Plan B or C outcome for her. But the film makes it seem like she's getting exactly what she wants. And as much as I enjoy her scheming, I want to see her thwarted more than she is.
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