LOVE and FRIENDSHIP-an Austen Adaption of Masterful Manipulation

Jane Austen's novel "Lady Susan" has been adapted into a delicisouly diabolical movie of mischievous, yet masterful manipulation in matters of marital pursuits.  The lovely to look and deceptively cunning Lady Susan (played to perfection by Kate Beckinsale) is a widow left with only her sharp tongue which waggles & finagles liaisons with suitors to suit her purposes.  Austen's themes of propriety, social hierarcy & refinement are guised craftily with underlying layers of unscrupulous manuverings.  Austen's heroine Emma was a manipulative matchmaker with her heart in the right place.  Lady Susan' is heartless "diabolical demon" with cunning claws that are swiftly withdrawn.  Dir/screenwriter Whit Stillman has made an unreproachable adaptation of late 18thC Britain's aristocracy & the limited options for women other than a beneficial marriage.  Lady Mary of Dowtown would have met her match with Lady Susan.  Although, my money is on Maggie Smith as the dominant dowager.  LOVE & FRIENDSHIP is a treasure trove of conventions and witticism of this era. "The wealthy can afford to take the high ground."  Lady Susan justifies the means to obtaining the ends.  She is a ruthless, conniving vixen under luscious layers of curls & taffeta.  A bad marriage is one without wealth & with "a husband too old to be governable and too young to die."  Chloe Sevigny plays an American wife of a wealthy Lord.  She is Lady Susan's clandestine confidant to whom Lady Susan reveals her devious plots.  Sevigny is forbidden by her husband to socialize with Lady Susan of her dubious renown or risk banishment back to the States.  Sadly, Sevigny is sorely out of sorts and the sole faux pas in this sumptuous film packed with delectable morsels.