Bay Area LIFE: Kate Beckinsale on new movie role and love of Bay Area!

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- "Love & Friendship" is an adaptation of Jane Austen's novella Lady Susan, believed to have been written in the mid-1790s but revised in 1805 and finally published by her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, in 1871.

Set in the 1790s, earlier than most Austen tales, "Love & Friendship" concerns beautiful young widow Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) who has come to Churchill, the estate of her in-laws, to wait out colorful rumors about her dalliances circulating through polite society.

While ensconced there, she decides to secure a husband for herself and for her daughter, Frederica, played by Morfydd Clark. Chlo Sevigny, who starred with Beckinsale in Stillman's The Last Days of Disco (1998), plays Lady Susan's friend and confidante Alicia Johnson, with Stephen Fry as her husband, the "very Respectable" Mr. Johnson.

The waters are troubled by the arrival at Churchill of the handsome, eligible Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel) and silly but cheerful -- and very rich -- Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett).

Lady Susan's designs are vehemently opposed by the DeCourcy clan: Reginald's sister, Catherine DeCourcy Vernon (Emma Greenwell); his mother, Lady DeCourcy (Jemma Redgrave) and father, Sir Reginald DeCourcy (James Fleet). But Susan's brother-in-law, magnanimous Charles Vernon (Justin Edwards), prefers to see her, and everyone, with a benevolent regard.

After a series of dramatic turns at Churchill, Lady Susan finally risks destruction when her jealous rival, Lady Lucy Manwaring (Jenn Murray), arrives in London to make a shocking revelation, leading to the denouement of denouements.

Love & Friendship opens in Bay Area theaters on May 20th.