Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Chloë Sevigny, Xavier Samuel, Morfydd Clark, Stephen Fry

Love & Friendship is an adaptation of young Jane Austen’s novella Lady Susan, believed to have been written in the mid 1790s but revised up to a fair copy prepared in 1805 and finally published by her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, in 1871.

Set in the 1790s, earlier than most Austen tales, the film concerns beautiful young widow Lady Susan Vernon who has come to Churchill, the estate of her in-laws, to wait out colourful rumours about her dalliances circulating through polite society. Whilst ensconced there, she decides to secure a husband for herself and for her daughter, Frederica.