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Thursday, June 2, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTS

MUSIC REVIEW

‘Love’ is graceful

By SOPHIA KAUFMAN

Daily Arts Writer

“Love and Friendship” is adapted 

from Jane Austen’s novella “Lady 
Susan.” Though not as well known 
or beloved as 
“Pride 
and 

Prejudice,” 
“Sense 
and 

Sensibility” 
or 

even 
“Emma,” 

this 
story 
is 

just as bright 
and funny, as it 
slyly pokes fun 
at several of its 
characters. It’s 
a marriage plot, but it’s less about 
grand gestures and declarations of 
love and more about a charismatic 
and charming woman’s ability 
to manipulate men — which is 
uncannily successful.

Directed 
by 
Whit 
Stillman, 

(“Damsels 
in 
Distress”) 
“Love 

and 
Friendship” 
follows 
Lady 

Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale, 
“Absolutely Anything”) and her 
daughter 
Frederica 
(Morfydd 

Clark, “The Falling”) as they visit 
and stay with relatives; they’re in a 
precarious position financially after 
the death of Lady Susan’s husband. 
Lady Susan wishes her daughter 
to marry Sir James Martin (Tom 
Bennett, “Shadow Dancer”), a well-
meaning but blithering idiot, for his 
wealth. Frederica is understandably 
reluctant 
and 
appeals 
to 
her 

mother’s sister-in-law Catherine 
(Emma Greenwell, “Dare to be 
Wild”), with whom they are staying, 
and Catherine’s brother Reginald 
(Xavier Samuel, “The Twilight 
Saga: Eclipse”). Lady Susan is 
disappointed in her daughter not 
only for disobeying her wishes 
but also for interrupting her own 
manipulations of Reginald, who is 
also wealthy and captivated by Lady 
Susan (to his family’s great distress).

Lady Susan often spends time 

with her American friend Alicia 
Johnson (Chloe Sevigny, “American 
Horror Story”), who helps her in her 
machinations. Their conversations 
feel as if one could overhear them 
today, full of wry humor and poking 
fun at oblivious men, but that in 
no way means they don’t require 
your full attention. At one point, 
put out that others aren’t adhering 
to the plans she had set for them 
and some of her more dishonest 
behavior had been found out, Lady 
Susan complains to Alicia, “Facts 
are horrid things.”

Though 
there 
are 
some 

exceptions, “Love and Friendship” 
isn’t exactly a star-studded cast. 
Perhaps that is what gives it quiet, 
unassuming authenticity. The film 
is 
simultaneously 
genuine 
and 

curiously self-aware, thanks to 
sharp, witty writing and a waltzing 
score that seems to laugh along 
with you at the establishing shots 
of real estate. The aesthetic delights 
of the film (costumes, hair, etc.) 
don’t pull focus from anything else 
but rather help the actors feel and 
look completely at home in this 
18th-century story.

The cast works effortlessly well 

together. Beckinsale and Bennett 
don’t have many scenes in which 
they interact alone, but they play 
each 
other 
up 
outstandingly, 

perspicacious genius and vacuous 
suitor both pursuing what they 
want.

By the end, four people have 

ended up coupled, but even the more 
virtuous pair can’t convince you 
that this story is romantic. While 
there are some shifty characters and 
a few bumbling husbands that make 
you laugh out loud — especially 
once you catch sight of their wives’ 
expression — Lady Susan is hero 
and villain and comic relief all at 
once. This story is hers. Stillman has 
crafted a tribute not only to Austen’s 
memory, but to some of her cleverest 
writing and funniest storytelling.

Flume’s latest blooms 
with a boom and a bang

Artist explores 

uncharted territory in 

new album.

By MATT GALLATIN

Daily Arts Writer

If Electronic Dance Music 

(EDM) is disco, and hip hop 
is punk rock (an increasingly 
relevant 
historical 
parallel), 
it 

seems 
as 
if 

we’re 
just 

about 
to 

approach 
the 

end 
of 
the 

decade. As the 
1970s reached conclusion, both 
disco and punk began bloating 
to extremes, relying so heavily 
on over-the-top antics that they 
seemed to emulate the virtuosity 
that they ostensibly hated. At 
the end of the ’70s, punk rocker 
Wendy 
O. 
Williams 
of 
The 

Plasmatics cut her guitar in half 
with a chainsaw whilst donning a 
whipped cream bra on TV. In 2015, 
rapper Kanye West, accompanied 
by a swath of black-clothed men, 
tormented the 2015 BRIT Awards 
with a flamethrower. Near the 
end of the peak of disco, Studio 
54’s reputation as a hedonistic 
palace of debauchery reached its 
height, with stories of hundreds 
of pounds of glitter thrown 
onto dancers and outfits that 
were hardly a step away from 
the birthday suit. Today, EDM 
festivals 
like 
Electric 
Daisy 

Carnival cater to that kind of 
sweaty, sexy, drug-fueled fun on a 
much larger and commercialized 
scale, complete with enormous 
pyrotechnics and stage set-ups. 
The Las Vegas festival saw record 
attendance last year — 400,000 
people over three days.

In line with that swelling, 

bigger-is-better 
mantra, 
Skin, 

the 
sophomore 
album 
of 

Australian 
producer 
Flume, 

is much larger — it’s a grand-
staged vision of his self-titled 
debut, far more feature packed, 
louder and longer. Where his 
first venture aimed to move, this 
one aims to shake and entrance, 

which is certainly the goal in a 
genre that tries to compete for 
the most earth-shattering live 
performances. You’re not at an 
EDM performance to slowly sway 
and nod, that’s for sure.

Even as his culture inevitably 

pushes his musical tendencies 
towards pop hooks and rather 
homogenous 
female 
guest 

vocalists, Flume deserves credit 
for 
maintaining 
his 
voice, 

generally refraining from falling 
into usual EDM tropes. The most 
typical EDM features — an eight-
to-twelve 
bar 
crescendo-and-

beat-drop, an obligatory Justin 
Bieber feature, liberal use of the 
Pryda snare — are avoided. “Say 
It,” perhaps the most structurally 
traditional EDM track on the 
album and a clear attempt to meet 
the radio halfway, is still a few 
lanes left of the kind of formulaic 
work you’ll hear from headliners 
of the field, such as Steve Aoki, 
Tiesto and Zedd.

Flume is at his best when he 

builds a hit on his own territory. 
“Never Be Like You,” sung by Kai, 
a frequent EDM collaborator, 
exemplifies that. It’s an infectious 
blend of glitter, twirls and starts-
and-stops. If Skin is the grand 
version of debut-album Flume, 
“Never Be Like You” is the larger-
than-life rework of the producer’s 
popular single “Sleepless.” It’s 
not 
groundbreaking, 
but 
it’s 

enjoyable.

Still, on Skin, Flume makes 

notable strides in the experimental 
realm. “Wall Fuck” and “Pika” 
are two of the most free-form 
pieces Flume has ever created, 
lacking the tight, rhythmic song 
structure that Flume has polished 
throughout his career. They can 
feel unrealized at points, but 
this is forgivable for a first-time 
foray into generally unexplored 
territory for the producer.

Peddling back to the punk-

disco parallel, Skin also makes a 
clear attempt at creating bridges 
between the worlds of EDM and 
hip hop. Four rappers are featured 
on the album — Vic Mensa, Vince 
Staples, 
Allan 
Kingdom 
and 

Raekwon. “You Know,” featuring 
both 
Kingdom 
and 
former 

Wu-Tang 
member 
Raekwon, 

is one of the better Wu-Tang-
meets-electronic collaborations, 
recalling stylistically the James 
Blake track “Take a Fall For 
Me” featuring fellow Wu-Tang 
member RZA (though its more 
successful 
here). 
The 
Vince 

Staples 
feature, 
“Smoke 
& 

Retribution,” is a strong point, 
though Vince’s cadence can’t 
tackle the industrial, relentless 
beat as satisfyingly as, say, Danny 
Brown on “Handstand.”

If it seems like Skin is pulling 

from broad, and occasionally 
opposing, 
musical 
styles, 
it’s 

because it is. Just as Raekwon is 
featured, so is alternative singer-
songwriter Beck. At times the 
release can feel like it’s stretching 
beyond its “skin.” The growing 
pains put a spotlight on weakness 
once easier to ignore in Flume’s 
work. The sequencing — a small 
issue on his self-titled debut 
— can be almost jarring here, 
particularly during the first half 
of the album, where the juggling 
of influences can be too much 
to sustain. But it’s where Flume 
can whirl together all of these 
influences when Skin truly excels, 
and nowhere is this clearer than 
opener “Helix.” Flutes signal 
synths, fluttering wings give 
way to techno, techno introduces 
industrial and industrial opens 
up to a mind-bogglingly hypnotic 
conclusion that seems as at home 
at an enormous outdoor festival 
as it would a clandestine 1990s 
rave. Past meets present, and 
present meets past.

For its ambition, Skin loses 

some of the nuance afforded by 
Flume’s debut, but in its place 
is a shinier, expansive body of 
work that refuses to cede to 
redundancy. 
It 
signals 
both 

promising and welcoming new 
directions for the young producer, 
and, one might hope, a change in 
EDM’s old guard.

B+

Skin

Flume

Mom+Pop

ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS

Imagine what these ladies would say at the price of Starbucks.

A-

Love & 
Friendship

Roadside 
Attractions

State Theatre

 FILM REVIEW

Skin loses some 
of the nuance 
from his debut.

