Fresh and Exciting

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

When I discovered that Austen's novel, Lady Susan, was finally adapted to the screen, I felt really happy, because is one of my favorite works by the author, and it is very underrated. When I've read the cast that would be in this film, i knew it was a dead cause before start to watching. I wished to be wrong, but I was right. It was so mediocre and it made the original plot so flat, so incoherent that at the end I was angry, really angry. The characters were reduced almost to extras (specially the Vernon family) and even Lady Susan became a weak character in this film ( Kate Backingsale was a poor choice, it felt like they were aiming Catherine Zetta Jones but only could pay for Backingsale). Lady Susan is originally seductive, smart, mean , very manipulative and with a strong presence. All the time in this movie she was just a mature good looking woman with terrible arguments to assure her fame. Sevigny was also a terrible choice, her acting was the worst! Her character was supposed to be as mean and manipulative as Susan Vernon, extremely frivolous, not only someone saying lines with barely no expression. The plot rushes in such a way that it makes impossible to believe in some of the characters choices and feelings and becomes completely boring after 20 minutes. It was a mess, i do not recommend this one, go read the book.

Th.e actors seem to do a good enough job acting, but the story line is simply lacking. While the lead actress is attractive, her character is built around her ability to think quickly and use her words to twist situations to her benefit and to lie in amazing ways. The problem is her wording is confusing and her talking is all there is to her character--using her words in manipulative ways. The movie is somewhat boring. I also did not like that characters were introduced as they appeared in the movie, by listing their names and something about them, such as their relationship to someone. That seems to be another evidence that the movie was not written well enough to show the relationships in scenes.

I always like Period drama. This movie is just average. It's just too fast and too many characters to follow. The old English language is a little hard to grasp. I admit that my English is not that good unfortunately. I would have to watch it again to fully appreciate what's going on.

First of all, yes, I'm a big fan of Jane Austen and I truly felt this movie did justice to her writing. Kate Beckinsale gave a terrific performance, and she was deliciously mean and sexy through the whole story. The sets and locations were beautiful, they really transported you to the time period (along with the lush costumes and makeup. I felt the supporting cast did a very good portraying their characters but Kate Beckinsale kept all eyes on her. Hard to believe this is the same actress who goes and do Underworld when she is so good at actual acting; and not just being dangerously sexy. I did feel the movie was kept contained like a page inside a book. There was a bit more that could have been done to create a bigger world, but the budget was probably limited. Terrific movie.