If Fanny is sensible and enamored with Virginia Woolf, Linda is mercurial - always either laughing or crying - and in love with the idea of love.Īs the two girls pass from adolescence into adulthood, they take sometimes parallel and sometimes diverging paths to romance and motherhood, and to independence during a historical moment in which female interiority was slow to be recognized and valued. Fanny’s closest friend and confidant is her cousin Linda (Lily James), who is in most ways Fanny’s opposite. When she isn’t advancing her schooling, Fanny is yearning for Alconleigh, the family estate owned by her Uncle Matthew ( Dominic West), a gregarious and mustachioed World War I veteran whose dislike for foreigners is matched only by his irritation at educated women. The series, set mostly between world wars, is narrated by Fanny (Emily Beecham), essentially orphaned by a mother so impetuous they call her The Bolter (Mortimer).

Mitford’s novel was published in 1945, but it’s inevitable that many responses to the series, especially on the American side of The Pond, where it has a slightly lower profile, will compare it to more recent fare, likely calling it a more bubbly My Brilliant Friend by way of Bridgerton, while also boosting Amazon sales of the book. The Pursuit of Love, based on the novel by Nancy Mitford, has issues with pacing in its three-hour adaptation, and the swings from very broad comedy to earnest feminism aren’t always fluid, but there’s still so much confidence to the style and performances.Ĭast: Lily James, Emily Beecham, Andrew Scott, Dolly Wells, John Heffernan, Emily Mortimerĭirector-screenwriter: Emily Mortimer, from the novel by Nancy Mitford Similar thoughts passed through my mind several times watching Amazon and the BBC’s The Pursuit of Love, a limited series that marks the wildly promising directing debut of actor Emily Mortimer, who previously turned her attention to writing and producing with the similarly assured dark comedy series Doll & Em. Odd, though, how that’s a justification applied more frequently to women than men. One might say, “But would she have been as remarkably versatile and talented behind the camera without that additional experience?” One can’t possibly know.

FX’s Better Things is such a spectacular show that I often watch episodes wondering how the industry might have been better if somebody had given Pamela Adlon the writing-directing-acting keys to the kingdom a decade earlier.

The pursuit of love book