Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Pursuit Of Love’ On Amazon Prime Video, About Two Friends With Different Ideas About Love In Pre-War England

We all certainly know that Emily Mortimer is one of the best actors around, whether you enjoyed her in The Newsroom or any one of her dozens of movie roles. But with Doll & Em, she proved that she’s an adept writer of dramedy, as well. For The Pursuit of Love, Mortimer not only has written the screenplay, adapted from a 1945 novel of the same name, but also directed the three-part limited series. What does she bring to the table in those multiple roles? Read on for more.

THE PURSUIT OF LOVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: On a sunny day in London, a pregnant woman sunbathes on the roof outside her flat, petting her dog while reading the newspaper.

The Gist: When she climbs down to her bedroom and gets in bed to rest, all of a sudden the bed falls through the floor. We’re in the Chelsea section of London in 1941; Fanny Logan (Emily Beecham) walks through the wreckage from the latest German bombing to see her pregnant friend Linda Radlett (Lily James) and her dog remarkably in one piece.

As we hear Fanny explain in voice over, her cousin Linda is one of her favorite people, but she wonders if the “five months of unalloyed happiness” that Linda had before the bombing overtook the 29 years of chaos that came before it. As they drive to Linda’s family estate in Oxfordshire, Fanny explains how, on her Christmases at the Radlett estate, Linda would show how dramatic and sensitive she was, but Fanny also admired her for the type of true love and romantic ideals she held out for.

We flash back to 1927, when Linda and Fanny were teenagers. They would talk about their hopes and dreams — and gossip about neighbors, relatives and handsome men — in their “Hons Society” meetings in a linen cupboard. Often Linda’s sisters would join her, but the relationship between Linda and Fanny was a special one.

Fanny has a different view of love than her cousin, mainly because her mother, whom everyone calls “The Bolter” (Emily Mortimer) handed baby Fanny to her Aunt Emily (Annabel Mullion) to raise while she traveled the world to pursue various men. Emily encourages Fanny to get an education, something that her uncle Matthew (Dominic West), frowns upon for his daughters, including Linda.

When the girls meet Lord Merlin (Andrew Scott), the artistic, free-spirited young owner of an adjacent estate, it certainly opens up Linda’s heart; she gets a crush on him, and when they finally meet again for a brunch, he encourages Linda to get an education, and tries to help her in that regard. She spends the summer reading but soon gets bored.

When they turn 18 and their first social season starts, Linda is entranced by Tony Kroesig (Freddie Fox). Her ever-racist father Matthew thinks of Kroesig as one of the “Huns” he killed in the war, but Linda thinks of him as her true love ideal, even when she and Fanny sneak off to Oxford to visit him at the university and find that he and his buddies are a bit dopey and brutish. She rushes to get married, especially to have a wedding that outstrips her sisters’ from the previous year. Fannie mainly feels like her cousin is leaving her behind.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Think Bridgerton, but 100 or so years later but with more of a sense of romance and less sex.

Our Take: Mortimer wrote and directed The Pursuit of Love, based on the 1945 novel by Nancy Mitford. What she sets out to do in the 3-part miniseries is to portray this friendship in the context of female friendships today, even though the story takes place over 80 years ago. Mortimer succeeds there by giving the story a sense of humor, a bit of whimsy, and a modern touch that makes the proceedings a whole lot less stuffy than they could have been.

Setting the show to a mostly ’70s new wave and punk soundtrack gives the story some more immediacy; even though the music itself is decades old, it conveys the right attitude for the story of Linda and Fanny. We especially see this when Merlin enters Uncle Matthew’s stuffy party, and to Linda’s eyes, he’s dancing with makeup-wearing artistic types instead of the middle-aged stiffs that are actually there. Backing that fantasy with T. Rex’s “Dandy In The Underworld” makes Merlin’s vibe all the more rebellious.

Even though the friendship between the practical Franny and the flighty Linda is at the show’s heart, the idea that both cousins eventually gravitate towards not only each other but what the other wants out of their lives will be interesting to watch. As their teenage years give way to marriages, pregnancies, and longing for something more, we’re looking forward to seeing how each of them change as they get older, wiser, and more world-weary. The war might also change their views, even though it seems that Linda is nonplussed that the Germans just bombed her out of her home.

There could be a little less emphasis on Franny’s voice over, which we depended on at the beginning of the episode to set the situation up, but needed less as the episode went on. But we were definitely drawn in by James’ performance as the free-spirited Linda, and Beecham is equally great as the buttoned-up Linda. There are other fine performances, as we’ll detail in a bit, but the two of them are the center of this story, and their performances are also what bring this 76-year-old story into the 21st century.

Sex and Skin: When the cousins take a bath together, we get glimpses of Linda as she gets in the tub, but it’s just glimpses. There’s also a glimpse of one of Tony’s naked friends taking a dip in a local pond. After all, the series originally aired on BBC One, so nudity and sex would need to be at a minimum.

Parting Shot: As we hear Sleater-Kinney’s “Modern Girl”, Fanny looks at Linda as her new husband Tony makes a sexist-pig wedding reception speech, and she sees that her cousin can’t help but show the regret she’s feeling in that moment.

Sleeper Star: Dominic West has a hell of a range, doesn’t he? Here, as the racist, misogynistic Uncle Matthew, he is pitch perfect as a somewhat crazy, too-masculine-for-anyone, stuffy British lord.

Most Pilot-y Line: As we mentioned above, the narration from Fanny got more distracting as the episode went on. We’re never a fan of narration to begin with, but sometimes it’s needed, as it was here in the first part of the episode. But it should have faded out as the episode went along.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Emily Mortimer has taken The Pursuit Of Love and made it a modern story that’s definitely relatable in the 2020s, even though it takes place in the 1920s-40s. And that’s no small feat.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Pursuit Of Love On Prime Video