dir. by Whit Stillman
BEST NEW FEATUREJane Austen's popular bibliography has long been a staple of cinema, with Pride & Prejudice in particular receiving no fewer than 10 screen adaptations. As such, it seems inevitable that filmmakers would eventually reach to the darkest corners of her catalogue, pulling out the early novella Lady Susan, a minor Austen work by all accounts, and expanding it to a full hour-and-a-half feature film. This adaptation, Whit Stillman's Love & Friendship, has received universal critical acclaim, boasting an impressive 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the best-reviewed film of the summer so far excluding a handful of smaller releases. It's a testament to how weak this summer has been that Love & Friendship doesn't even come close to earlier title holders such as Boyhood and Mad Max: Fury Road, but at the same time, Stillman's film is an absolute delight from start to finish.
