Review – Sense and Sensibility ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

‘The man who loves me must burn with it. With all his passion – without the slightest trace of restraint or hesitation.’

Blue Jean director Georgia Oakley and screenwriter Diana Reid come together to bring us a fresh take on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, one that will surely sing in key with young audiences yet to have a truly resonant Regency experience. 2005’s Pride & Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley and Matthew McFadyen, still holds a special place in the hearts of those who saw it in in their teens – so much so that when I first saw it last year during its 20th anniversary rerelease, the whole cinema was packed with thirty-somethings – so it seems only fair to give Gen Z (and, God forbid, even Gen A) something similar to chew on.

When it comes to Sense and Sensibility – certainly the lesser read of Austen’s two alliterative romances – Ang Lee’s 1995 film, from a script by its own star Emma Thompson, is still the gold standard. One I’m, admittedly, still yet to see myself. I imagine that, for some, the 90s rendition will be untouchable, with its shiny glitz and glamour and performances from heavyweights like Alan Rickman and Kate Winslet (and, of course, Hugh Grant) but this new adaptation has plenty going for it all the same.

Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Elinor Dashwood, the eldest of the three Dashwood sisters and the only one with any real Sense, at least to begin with. Her slightly younger sister Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles) is more concerned with Sensibility, shown to us almost immediately as she lies strewn in a grassy field just drinking in all the sights and sounds of the wildlife – a caterpillar crawling over her finger. 

Though the third and youngest sister, Margaret, has her own part to play, the story’s really revolves around the dynamic between Elinor and Marianne as their bond is tested by their respective searches for love amidst the suitors in their lives, of which some may be a better fit than others. 

Their father’s passing brings their timid half brother John and his severe wife Fanny down on them, the couple having inherited his estate in the will. Fanny quickly lives up to her name by coercing John into pushing the Dashwoods away, worried that the girls’ fair share of the inheritance might lessen the payout for herself, and the three sisters, along with their mother, soon find themselves awkwardly pushed out of their own house and into a tiny cottage in Devonshire. 

Now miles away from their home in Sussex, where Elinor had been enjoying a burgeoning romance with Fanny’s brother, Edward Farras (Hugh Grant’s character in the 1995, here played by George Mackay), the girls’ lives seem to be in wholly dire straits, even as Marianne finds rural possibilities with two suitors of her own. 

Just as something like the Noughties Pride & Prejudice built itself around that central love story between Elizabeth and Darcy, brewing beneath the surface before breaking out into brief (rain-drenched) moments of passionate relief, this new Sense and Sensibility has a clear and concrete understanding of the story’s beating heart. While their romances are given the time to breathe rather than feeling at all underdeveloped, the film never pulls away from its core – the dynamic between Elinor and Marianne.

Both sisters bring something different to the table. Edgar-Jones has a melancholic sense of duty and politeness as Elinor, which complements the complexities of her arc with Edward, as the pair struggle to balance their own feelings with the expectations and responsibilities placed on them by outside forces. Creed-Miles’ Marianne is much more free-spirited and outspoken, often getting some of the best lines of the bunch, but this same energy makes her rather mercurial, too. She’s a challenging character, but her performance rises to that challenge on almost every occasion. Crucially, the pair feel like real sisters rather than ciphers, and Oakley’s choice to let the pair giggle with each other and squeal with delight as they swoon over the local heartthrobs helps their relationship feel modern and playful rather than rehearsed and regal.

While I was expecting a strong sense of sisterhood going into this film, I was quite surprised by how much humour the cast manage to bring out of the material here, especially without undercutting the drama. Everyone has committed to the period setting, with all involved chewing the scenery for all its worth, waxing philosophical about lords and ladies and such. Brief sections are somewhat hard to follow given the language (the next time my server asks me if I’m enjoying the food, I’ll say ‘Oh yes, the very taste of it brings me to raptures!’) but for the most part, the script is helped by the complexity of the conversations rather than hindered, with the wit of the source material shining through.

Despite having some qualms with the runtime at first glance – at 130 minutes, the film stands at a similar length to Pride & Prejudice, which I found really dragged on – Sense and Sensibility manages to feel much shorter and far better paced by clearly structuring its acts. The poor Dashwoods find themselves pushed all over the South of England, usually with only their eccentric and overzealous distant relation Mrs Jennings (Fiona Shaw) for company, which is surely terrible for them, but all the better for an interesting story. From what I can gather, the climax here is an expansion of Austen’s original ending, but fans of Regency dramas (or, indeed, hip hop musicals) will be well prepared for the third act’s confrontations. 

From there, things build to a pretty much pitch-perfect ending, complete with a good old fashioned redeployment of an age old rom-com trope, scored brilliantly by composer Roger Goula, who lends just the whole film the grandness you’d expect from an adaptation of a Canonical text. His music is a highlight throughout, but in the final minutes, it was very easy to feel moved by it. All in all, this new stab at an Austen text really does manage to deliver the goods. As someone who only saw the Knightley Pride & Prejudice last year and felt (at best) underwhelmed by it, Sense and Sensibility stands as a worthy spiritual successor for a new generation.

BBFC: Rated U for upsetting scenes, very mild threat, sex references, language.

Sense and Sensibility is in cinemas now.