Love & Friendship. Whit Stillman, director. Based on the novella Lady Susan, by Jane Austen, adapted by Whit Stillman. Main Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Chloe Sevigny, Xavier Samuel, Tom Bennett, James Fleet, Stephen Fry. USA/Ireland, 2015

Bitchy? Check. Manipulative? Check. Beautiful? Check. Lady Susan Vernon is all of the above and more. Played brilliantly by Kate Beckinsale, the widow is out to wreak havoc on the British upper class of the 1790s – and especially her in-laws – when she decides to secure a husband for her extremely reluctant wallflower of a daughter, Frederica – while all the while looking for one for herself. Lady Susan has quite a reputation and her in-laws are mortified about colorful rumors of dalliances that she may or may not have had in London, when she invites herself to spend time at their country estate, named Churchill. While heavily flirting with the young and sexy Sir Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel) she tries to marry Federica off to the very rich but extremely simple-minded Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett) who is fascinated by a vegetable he cannot name – peas – and incapable of finding the estate, which results in one of the funniest dialogues when he tries to explain that he was looking for a church and a hill (both of which he was unable to spot) while it never occurred to him to put the two words together, hence Churchill. Tom Bennett is the only actor who stands his ground with Kate Beckinsale who steals the scene from everyone else with her tour de force performance.

Based on one of Jane Austen’s early novels, Love & Friendship’s Lady Susan is an unusual heroine for the writer, in that she behaves abominably and sometimes even cruelly. She doesn’t pay her servant because she believes it would be an insult to their friendship. When one of her letters, sent to a friend and ripped open by his jealous wife, exposes an affair, she reacts with anger that anyone would dare to read her private correspondence. And she defends pushing Federica into marrying Sir James by telling her sister-in-law, who takes the poor girl’s side, that she should appreciate “the one thing he has of value … his income.”

Love & Friendship is a very witty English comedy directed by Whit Stillman that also stars Stephen Fry and Chloe Sevigny as Lady Susan’s American friend and co-conspirator from Connecticut.