Join the Washington DC Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, Jul 10th at 5:25pm for Love & Friendship at the Landmark E Street Cinema . Look for Laine wearing a red Washington Nationals t-shirt in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.
Set in the 1790s, earlier than most Jane Austen tales, Love & Friendship concerns beautiful young widow Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) who has come to Churchill, the estate of her in-laws, to wait out colorful rumors about her dalliances circulating through polite society. Whilst ensconced there, she decides to secure a husband for herself and for her daughter. In doing so she attracts the simultaneous attentions of the young, handsome Reginald DeCourcy, the rich and silly Sir James Martin and the divinely handsome, but married, Lord Manwaring, complicating matters severely. After a series of dramatic turns at Churchill, Lady Susan finally risks destruction when her jealous rival, Lady Lucy Manwaring (Jenn Murray), arrives in London to make a shocking revelation, leading to the denouement of denouements. An adaptation of young Austen’s comic novella Lady Susan, Love & Friendship also stars Chloe Sevigny and Stephen Fry (Wilde) and is directed and co-written by Whit Stillman (The Last Days of Disco, Metropolitan, Barcelona).