Some filmgoers can’t help themselves. When the tension is too taut, or when the solution to a problem is right there, they call out to the screen as if the characters will hear them. Some yell “Don’t go in there!” when a hapless horror movie hero walks up to a haunted house. Others scream “Look out!” when a killer is right behind the protagonist, brandishing a knife.
Then there’s the other kind, who watches a film like “Sense and Sensibility” and shrieks “Ask her to marry you, you damned fool!” I’m in this last group, incidentally. I can handle gruesome terror, I can handle Hitchcockian suspense, but put me in front of a classy Jane Austen adaptation and I’ll white-knuckle my way through the whole movie, even when I know how it ends. It took all the strength I could muster to sit quietly in the theater during the new “Sense and Sensibility,” because I was crying in my head the entire time about how Willoughby is an a-hole and Colonel Brandon loves you, Marianne. Open your eyes! Gah!
Georgia Oakley’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s timeless, beloved 1811 novel is enchanting and beautiful, just as it should be. It’s also, in its earthy yet humorous way, intensely riveting, which is also as it should be. It’s the story of the Dashwood Sisters: Elinor, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones, is sensible, and Marianne, played by Esmé Creed-Miles, is sensitive. Together they pursue love in an era when expressing human emotions is practically punishable by death — or at least public humiliation, which in Georgian England was arguably worse.
The story begins when Elinor and Marianne’s father dies and leaves his estate to the closest male relative, who sucks. He kicks their whole side of the family out as fast as possible. With their mother Mrs. Dashwood (Caitríona Balfe) and little sister Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), they move into a shack owned by their wealthy, very distant cousins, and settle into a life of relative poverty. That’s what happens when you’re only poor because of your relatives. With no dowry to speak of, the odds are against Elinor and Marianne ever marrying well, and thanks to the ongoing curse that is institutionalized misogyny, they don’t have any other options for improving their lives.
But of course, they don’t want to marry for money. They want to marry for love. Elinor quickly and quietly falls for Edward Ferrars (George MacKay), a mild, mild, mild-mannered gentleman who seems to love her too. Possibly. We don’t know because they’re both ever so proper and refuse to reveal their true feelings. Meanwhile, Marianne vows to live as passionately as possible, attracting two polar-opposite suitors — the stoic Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum) and the carefree Willoughby (Frank Dillane) — which leads to all manner of trouble.
It’s a spry and enchanting love story, because both the elder Dashwood sisters are absolutely right and absolutely wrong. Elinor could solve her problems if she weren’t so sensible and Marianne could solve her own problems if she had a little more sense. We adore them both, even as they make us shake our heads in frustration. They’re lovely, wonderful people and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t get everything they want — no reason, that is, except for the very same qualities which make them lovely and wonderful.
“Sense and Sensibility” has been adapted before, most notably in the practically-perfect 1995 feature film written by Emma Thompson and directed by Ang Lee, starring Thompson and Kate Winslet as Elinor and Marianne. Georgia Oakley’s version, written by Diana Reid, tells the same story with only slight alterations, because the trick to adapting a Jane Austen novel is to get out of Austen’s way. She knew exactly how to wrap her audience around her finger, and we’re all better off if we let her cook. It’s a smart, guileful script with nary a flaw in sight.
The difference, more than anything else, comes from Oakley. The director of 2022’s “Blue Jean” looks at a story we’ve all read and watched before, and loved, and finds more melancholy than usual. Behind Austen’s rapier wit and legendary romanticism there lies daily tragedy, where everyone is repressed and women, in particular, are oppressed. Many Austen adaptations treat the inequities of the era as a frustrating but laughable backdrop but Oakley’s “Sense and Sensibility” keeps the historical context front and center. The humor has an undercurrent of sadness and the melodramatic contrivances of the plot feel tragically inevitable.
Austen’s novels were gripping, ripping social commentaries and Oakley’s rendition keeps that tradition alive, with a twinge more severity than previous versions. “Sense and Sensibility” still sweeps us off our feet, and we’re grateful for it, but the fields of dry brush and slightly dim, realistic lighting keeps the film from ever playing like an escapist fantasy. Add in Daisy Edgar-Jones, who plays Elinor’s inner torment with a steely, tearjerking resolve, and Esmé Creed-Miles, who throws herself headlong into Marianne’s emotional self-destruction, and you’ve got a “Sense and Sensibility” which gets captures all the tender and, sometimes, depressing dichotomies of the original.
Fans of the 1995 adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility” — aren’t we all? — may have trouble watching this new version without comparing the two. But it’s a comparison, not a contrast. Both films do justice to Austen’s story. We revisit classic texts over and over again, not because nobody ever did it right before (usually), but because new generations deserve to take their own crack at this material, and remind us which tales still matter. Georgia Oakley’s intoxicating film proves Austen’s work is just as important as ever, and that this filmmaker, this screenwriter, this cast, and this crew are just as talented, and sensitive — and yes, even as sensible — as their forebears.
“Sense and Sensibility” will be released exclusively in theaters on Oct. 16.
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