The Pursuit of Love – Episode One Review

Based on a novel by Nancy Mitford and featuring an all-star cast, The Pursuit of Love is the latest period drama from the BBC.

Fanny Logan (Emily Beecham) and Linda Radlett (Lily James) are cousins and best friends who are growing up during the interwar years. Linda has an abusive father (Dominic West) and Fanny’s mother (Emily Mortimer) is nicknamed The Bolter because she keeps running away from relationships.

The first episode of the miniseries focuses on Fanny and Linda in their late teens. Both yearn to escape their lives in the countryside. Linda wants to love and has two suitors, the artistic Lord Merlin (Andrew Scott) and Oxford student Tony Kroesig (Freddie Fox).

When the first episode aired there were many people on Twitter who compared it to the work of Wes Anderson. I completely agree with these statements and I thought that when watching it. Emily Mortimer, who wrote and directed the miniseries, copied a lot of Anderson’s style of storytelling. Fanny narrated most of the episode where she told the audiences about the characters, their personalities, and their pasts. There were quick edits as she describes events like Linda’s suicide attempt and Linda’s father prepares to use the cane on her.

The Pursuit of Love also shares Anderson’s style of humour. This was done through the voiceover or linked to it. This included the aforementioned suicide, and Linda’s father chasing after his children whilst riding a horse. The first episode did generate some laughs because the dialogue was witty, yet there was also a dark undertone. Uncle Matthew was clearly a disturbed man because he rants about all the people he hates, and he takes pride with the war service where he enjoyed killing ‘Huns.’ Linda did try to kill herself as a child which was treated as a dark joke and she falls into a state of melancholy due to her on-off relationship with Tony.

The Pursuit of Love was compared to the work of Sofia Coppola. The film critic Mathew Buck suggested that in one of his tweets. Mortimer and her team were aiming to give the period drama a modern twist. Coppola did this with her film Marie Antoinette and The Pursuit of Love used some of the same techniques. The episode used a lot of modern music like The Who’s ‘Blue, Red and Grey’ and T. Rex’s ‘Dandy in the Underworld’. One of the most memorable moments of the episode was when Linda sees Lord Merlin for the first time which leads to a fantasy sequence with T. Rex playing. However, The Pursuit of Love wasn’t the first period drama to use modern music: the 2008 version of Brideshead Revisited and Bridgerton used covers of modern songs.

Whilst the first oozed style, the first episode’s aim was simply to introduce the characters and set up the story. It’s hardly revolutionary for the first episode to do this, but The Pursuit of Love only has three episodes and the source novel was only 247 pages long. This does lead to fears that the series is going to stretch itself thin. This was what happened with the BBC’s adaptation of War of the Worlds, where they over-extended a short novel. The story in this episode was simply to establish the friendship between Linda and Fanny and show Linda’s potential suitors.

A final couple of notes. Firstly, it was weird to see Dominic West and Lily James play father and daughter when in real life the paparazzi caught them kissing. To a modern British audience, it is unintentionally funny to hear someone being called Fanny. The episode even plays on this when the character enters a room and everyone shouts ‘it’s Fanny!’

The Pursuit of Love’s first episode was a fun take on the period drama due to its style and humour. It is a treat for people who like a quirky, indie approach. It helps make up for the episode’s thin story.