The Pursuit of Love movie review (2021)

Beginning in 1941 before jumping back to 1927 and moving linearly forward, “The Pursuit of Love” follows cousins Fanny Logan (Emily Beecham) and Linda Radlett (Lily James). Fanny is the only daughter of the Bolter (Mortimer), a woman who left her to be raised by her Aunt Emily (Annabel Mullion) while the Bolter dove into a string of relationships. Deeply hurt by her mother’s abandonment, Fanny grows into a practical, logical young woman. Each Christmas, Fanny visits Linda at her family’s manor house Alconleigh in the English countryside. Alconleigh is ruled by Linda’s tyrannical father Matthew (Dominic West), whose hatred of foreigners and refusal to let his children—especially his daughters—be educated has inspired in Linda a passionately emotional nature, and a desperate desire to grow up and leave her family.

Each episode of “The Pursuit of Love” tracks the cousins as they attempt to navigate pending adulthood, and their routine becomes Linda falling for a man, deciding she’s in love, leaving Fanny to be with him, and then realizing that she hasn’t found happiness at all. “She was a wild and nervous creature, full of passion and longing,” Fanny (who serves as the series’ narrator) says of Linda, and Linda whole-heartedly throws herself into one relationship after another. Each man opens up a window into a different kind of world: Tony Kroesig (Freddie Fox), an Oxford student, banker’s son, and eventual member of the House of Lords; Christian Talbot (James Frecheville), an avowed Communist and ally to laborers, in particular those rising up during the Spanish Civil War; and Duke Fabrice de Sauveterre (Assaad Bouab), a wealthy Frenchman whose appreciation for fashion and art is balanced by his involvement in the French Resistance.

As Linda moves spontaneously through the world, Fanny stays put and worries; much of the tension of “The Pursuit of Love” comes from that imbalance. The arcs of supporting characters also rotate around Linda: the snarling Matthew, who West portrays with alternately hilarious absurdity (“Linda, you’re uneducated, thank God”) and unsettling rage; Fanny’s concerned uncle Davey (John Heffernan), whose wide grin belies his awareness of the social ruin Fanny faces if she gains a certain reputation; and the Radletts’ neighbor Lord Merlin (Andrew Scott), a “bright young thing” whose eccentric qualities (dying pigeons bright colors, letting a horse roam through his home) run parallel to his belief that society’s rules often subjugate women. Heffernan and Scott (this miniseries’ smoldering MVP) are particularly great together, and their characters offer two sides of the “moneyed gentleman” coin. A scene during which Davey and Merlin trade snide observations about how wealthy their peers are and dissolve into laughter over memories of gallivanting around Europe together is an absolute highlight, and an indicator of what “The Pursuit of Love” could have used more of: sardonic self-awareness to balance so much treacly sincerity.