Movie Review
Sense and Sensibility
8/10
TLDR
Sense and Sensibility doesn’t have the snap of Pride & Prejudice, but it’s wonderfully swoon-worthy all the same. Daisy Edgar-Jones and a scene-stealing Fiona Shaw lead a cast that lifts a stuffy script, and a sweeping score makes it a cozy fall hit.
Where to watch: In theaters October 16 (Focus Features)
The Facts
Synopsis: After her husband’s death, the widowed Mrs. Dashwood and her three unmarried daughters find themselves in desperate straits. Their family estate, Norland Park, passes to Mr. Dashwood’s son from a previous marriage, John, leaving Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret no choice but to move to modest Barton Cottage. Logical Elinor and passionate Marianne clash as only sisters can, yet their unshakable bond sees them through relocation, romance, heartbreak and hope for a happy future.
Director: Georgia Oakley
Stars: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Esmé Creed-Miles, Caitríona Balfe, Frank Dillane, Herbert Nordrum, George MacKay, Fiona Shaw
Rated: PG, for some thematic elements, partial nudity, and brief violence
Running Length: 132 minutes
The Thoughts
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a critic with a Jane Austen blind spot must be in want of a good excuse. Mine is Sense and Sensibility, and I don’t have one. Ang Lee‘s much-loved 1995 version earned seven Oscar nominations and won Emma Thompson the prize for her screenplay. Having already won Best Actress for Howards End, she became the only person with Oscars for both acting and writing. I’ve seen it exactly once (I know, I know).
Like most of you, I’ve always been drawn to Pride and Prejudice. Of the many adaptations under its frilly frock, the one I keep coming back to is Joe Wright‘s gorgeous Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley. Working Title produced that 2005 film and Focus Features released it, and the same team has reunited here. Call it the Jane Austen Cinematic Universe, with fewer capes and muddier hems. It doesn’t have quite the snap of Pride & Prejudice, but it’s wonderfully swoon-worthy all the same.
Sense and Sensibility, Downsized
The trouble starts with a promise. Before Mr. Dashwood dies, he asks John (Tom Brooke, Slow Horses), his son from his first marriage, to provide for his stepmother and three half-sisters. Then John’s snobby wife, Fanny (Stacy Martin, The Brutalist), goes to work on him. A generous inheritance shrinks to a modest gift, then to a small annuity for the widow, then to nothing at all. Why pay an annuity, Fanny reasons, when the people who collect them always seem to live forever? It’s a wickedly funny scene and a cruel one, leaving the Dashwood women with next to nothing.
John and Fanny soon settle into Norland Park as if they’d always owned it. The widowed Mrs. Dashwood (Caitríona Balfe, Belfast) and her girls are guests in their own home. The bright spot is Fanny’s brother, Edward Ferrars (George MacKay, 1917). He and eldest daughter Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones, Where the Crawdads Sing) grow close, much to Fanny’s horror. Elinor keeps her feelings as neatly folded as the linens. Her younger sister, Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles, The Chronology of Water), wears every feeling on her sleeve.
Rescue arrives with Mrs. Jennings (Fiona Shaw, Killing Eve), a distant relative (she’ll have to explain how) who offers the family a cottage in Devonshire. In the book, that offer comes from a cousin, one of a few small changes in Diana Reid‘s screenplay. Another comes on the beach, where Marianne sprains her ankle playing in the sea instead of running down a rainy hill. The dashing Willoughby (Frank Dillane, Urchin) happens by to carry her home, and Marianne is gone, heart and all.
Sense, Sensibility and Cold, Hard Cash
Austen drafted this story before Pride and Prejudice, and it reached readers first, in 1811, with a title page crediting only “a Lady.” Its first printing sold out within two years, and the book hasn’t been out of print since. Elinor is sense, all the reason and restraint of the Enlightenment. Marianne is sensibility, the raw feeling of the Romantic movement then sweeping England.
Underneath the romance is cold, hard math. Estates passed to the nearest male heir, so for women like the Dashwoods, marriage was a way to keep a roof overhead. A family pushed out of its home, downsizing and keeping up appearances on a shrinking income doesn’t feel two centuries old. Neither does the heartbreak. Reid, who’s about the age Austen was when she wrote the book, notes that these characters love-bomb and ghost each other. She’s right, and Willoughby would have been a champion ghoster.
Producer India Flint, a Working Title veteran, brought Reid aboard after reading her debut novel, Love & Virtue. Director Georgia Oakley made a splash with Blue Jean, her portrait of a closeted gym teacher in 1988 England. Modern period pieces tend to land in one of two camps, the candy-colored gloss of Bridgerton or the starched realism of the 1990s. Oakley skips both. Her Dashwood sisters garden, walk the fields barefoot and wear their hair down at breakfast, modern without ever feeling out of place.
Daisy Edgar-Jones Finds New Corners in Elinor
The trap with this book is making Marianne too modern or Elinor too passive, and this cast sidesteps both. Edgar-Jones gives a beautifully intelligent performance as a young woman who has made a full-time job of composure. She guards Elinor’s heart carefully while steering everyone around her toward love. When Elinor finally lets herself hope and finds heartache instead, Edgar-Jones shifts into another gear entirely. She finds corners in Elinor that Emma Thompson didn’t, building to a moving scene near the finale that ranks among her finest work. That’s no shade to Thompson, only proof that two wonderful performances can serve the same woman in completely different ways.
Creed-Miles is perfect casting as the lovestruck Marianne, with an unusual beauty and an emotional temperature that swings from hot to cold. Her love for one man blinds her to another’s growing affection, putting her whole future at risk. I wasn’t shocked to learn she’s the daughter of Samantha Morton, because mother and daughter share a rare gift. They’re at their most captivating between the lines, while you’re waiting for them to finish a thought.
Fiona Shaw nearly steals the entire show as Mrs. Jennings, ribald and raucous without ever tipping a scene off balance. In another year, a turn like this would be a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actress. That category is already crowded, so it’s an uphill climb, but she’d land high on my ballot. MacKay is no Mr. Darcy, but he’s a fine substitute and a lovely match for Edgar-Jones. Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum, The Worst Person in the World) keeps the Dashwood sisters at arm’s length. Then his feelings for Marianne catch even him by surprise.
Balfe has some lovely moments as a widow unsure of her next step. She and youngest sister Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Hamnet) get short shrift, though, vanishing for much of the back half.
Muddy Hems and Stiff Collars
The film looks stunning without a speck of Hollywood gloss, and that’s the point. Costume designer Grace Snell dyed fabrics with logwood, madder and onion skins. The sisters share and reuse their dresses, so you can feel the family’s fortunes slipping. Cinematographer Arnaud Potier (Dead Man’s Wire) shot on 35mm with vintage lenses, so the frames look like paintings of the era, not a streaming series.
Composer Roger Goula (All That Breathes) is the unsung hero. Instead of themes, he gives each sister an instrument, a solo violin for Elinor and a soprano’s voice for Marianne. The result is passionate and sweeping, and whenever the pacing drags, that music is the emotional glue holding everything together.
The script is the weak link. Reid kept much of Austen’s language, and the dialogue can come off stiff, taking itself a little too seriously. The cast picks up the slack, doing the heavy lifting with their eyes. This book and Pride and Prejudice also lean on the same contrivance. A charming suitor sweeps in, takes in even level-headed Elinor and Elizabeth for a while, and turns out to be a cad. Both scoundrels, Willoughby and Wickham, have surnames beginning with W, which makes me suspect some real-life Mr. W once did young Jane wrong.
Sensibility Wins This Round
Is the script a little stuffy? Sure. But this is a movie made with real passion, and that counts for more than a few starched lines. The acting, the scenery and that score carry it a long way. Austen’s heroines may be hopeless romantics, helpless in love and down on their luck in class and finance. They charm the men around them anyway, and the audience right along with them. That’s what makes the tear-stained happy ending worth every penny we shell out for it. This Sense and Sensibility deserves to be a cozy fall hit, so grab a blanket, a cup of tea and a handkerchief.
The Final
A slightly stuffy script can’t stop this earthy, passionate Austen adaptation. Daisy Edgar-Jones finds new corners in Elinor, Fiona Shaw steals scenes, and Roger Goula’s score sweeps you off your feet. A cozy fall hit.
8/10
Where to watch: In theaters October 16 (Focus Features)
Reviewed by Joe Botten
Joe Botten is The MN Movie Man, a Twin Cities film critic writing spoiler-free reviews since 2012. He also writes for Loud and Clear Reviews, a Rotten Tomatoes approved site. Find him on Instagram and Letterboxd.
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