Jesus more than once made clear that He reserved the meaning of His teachings for those “with ears to hear” and “eyes to see.” And in an epoch defined by constant hyperstimulation of the eyes and ears, Whit Stillman’s 2016 “Love & Friendship” offers to refresh and retune our moral senses.

Shocking lack of shock

Based on “Lady Susan,” a nasty little novella by Jane Austen, the movie is primarily about villainy, portrayed masterfully by Kate Beckinsale as the lady. 

In the film, Stillman proves something one hopes other filmmakers will notice: It is perfectly possible to make an intelligent, seriously-themed, full-length movie for grownups, complete with heavy-hitting stars (including Stephen Fry), and (shockingly) zero nudity, cussing, blasphemy, or gratuitous violence.

“Love & Friendship” also proves that such films can even be about wickedness without showing the worst kinds of wickedness graphically. 

By the end of the film, for example, adult viewers are fully aware that one of Lady Susan’s primary motivations is lust. She is in fact with child by another woman’s husband, and she lives with two men, one of whom she uses to fund her self-serving extravagance and the other of whom she uses to satisfy herself carnally. 
The steamy, graphic scenes that could have been included in the film to convey that situation are easy to imagine. But Stillman included nothing of the sort, which is why only Mom and Dad – and not the kids coloring pictures on the living room floor during the movie – perceive Susan’s full depravity.

Evil with a purpose

Throughout the film, Stillman depicts evil for a purpose – and the purpose is to showcase The Good, The True, and The Beautiful. Those perfections are named explicitly by a minor character – an upright clergyman who obviously speaks for God.

The Satanic self-interest and cruelty of Lady Susan are boundless, and her wickedness is hardly different in kind from that of Francis Underwood in Netflix’s “House of Cards.”

But if shows like “House of Cards” offer any insight into life, it’s often in the form of a kind of wallowing lamentation over an irretrievable loss of morality. As satire, such shows do a real service by holding a mirror up to our age and teaching it, if nothing else, at least a fitting degree of disgust. They teach us to loathe ambition, power-lust, and ruthlessness. They engage and exercise, if not our eyes and ears, at least our gag reflex.

However, the spit-flecked obscenities, bare body parts, and nauseatingly explicit depictions of adulterous and even sodomitic lust that characterize “House of Cards” (and a million other movies and series like it) can also have the effect of coarsening, dulling, and rendering our eyes and ears inert.

“Love & Friendship” avoids this trap and, in doing so, offers the viewer a vision of a better way. Stillman rejects the salacious in favor of the suggestive. As a result, his film is a bright alternative and relieving salve for the soul.