13 Awesome Summer Movies You Probably Missed
5. Love & Friendship
The Plot: In the 1790s, widowed Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) seeks to find a husband for both herself and her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) in order to replenish her depleted fortune.
Why It's Awesome: Whit Stillman (Metropolitan) tackling Jane Austen proves to be a match made in heaven, as his loose adaptation of Austen's unfinished epistolary novel Lady Susan proves to be one of the year's most wittily hilarious romps.
Even if you find period dramas dreadfully boring, there's a gleefully subversive potency to Love and Friendship much like Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, keenly aware of the genre's tropes and frequently undermining them.
Best of all is Beckinsale, who gives without doubt the best performance of her career as the outrageously passive-aggressive, catty protagonist. Period fans, Austen fans and simply those who enjoy wry comedy will love it.