It’s been more than 30 years since Ang Lee’s Oscar-nominated adaptation of Sense and Sensibility wowed audiences and critics alike, and the film still casts a remarkably long shadow, even in the world of Jane Austen adaptations, where new versions of favorites like Pride and Prejudice and Emma tend to land with clockwork-like regularity. Outside of a BBC limited series, which aired in 2008, and a handful of Austen-inspired Hallmark Channel holiday movies, there’s a surprising lack of other attempts to bring the story of the Dashwood family to the screen, a sure sign of how beloved Lee’s take, adapted from a script by its star Emma Thompson, was and still is.
When looked at from that perspective, director Georgia Oakley deserves serious praise for simply being willing to take a fresh swing at this material. Smartly, the new Sense and Sensibility doesn’t attempt to re-create that which has come before; instead it forges its own path visually and narratively. Eschewing the bright, whimsical palette that so often colors Austen adaptations (and which, thanks to Bridgerton, is so popular among current period dramas), Oakley’s film opts for a moody, aggressive sort of naturalism.
The wild, sprawling English forests and countrysides are beautiful in their simplicity, as golden-hour sunshine wafts across riotous, waving grasses or rain falls in artful sheets. A mix of both candles and natural light helps interior sets feel lived-in and realistic, and almost everyone’s hair is just a bit untidy, their clothes vaguely rumpled or unkempt. This is Austen by way of the physical world, and it’s a wonderfully humanizing framing for the story to come.
Efficiently breezing through the novel’s major plot beats, the film begins just as the Dashwood sisters receive word of their late father’s will. As is often the case in such a strictly patriarchal society, the newly widowed Mrs. Dashwood (Caitríona Balfe) and her daughters, Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones), Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles), and Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), are essentially consigned to a life of genteel poverty when the entirety of his estate passes to the eldest son John (Tom Brooke), a half-brother the girls barely know. Forced to relocate to a seaside cottage in Devon after John’s wife—the gloriously awful Fanny (Stacy Martin)—discourages him from helping them financially, the Dashwoods bid farewell to their home at Norland Park, and the budding romance between Elinor and Fanny’s sweet but somewhat awkward brother Edward (George MacKay). As Elinor yearns for the man she left behind, Marianne finds herself enraptured by the dashing John Willoughby (Frank Dillane) and quietly courted by the kinder, more reserved Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum).
The basic notes of this story will, of course, be familiar to anyone who has read this Austen classic or seen any previous onscreen adaptation. Elinor’s inability to say how she truly feels causes no end of problems and misunderstandings, Marianne’s reckless devotion to love above all else leads to heartbreak, and the two must find solace and comfort in one another in the face of seemingly insurmountable griefs. Yet, scriptwriter Diana Reid manages to find a fresh take (for the most part, at least) on this story’s well-trod ground by deliberately centering its script on the Dashwood sisters’ deep and unshakable bond.
The film’s strongest scenes are those between Elinor and Marianne, as they debate, question, and occasionally yell at each other over their diametrically opposed approaches to life and romance. (How different things might be, if either of them ever bothered to truly listen to the other!) Edgar-Jones and Creed-Miles share a fabulously rich sibling chemistry, and the complex intimacy between the sisters is crafted with genuine depth and care. Their relationship is so central to this version of the story that it occasionally overshadows both sisters’ respective romances, but it’s also the movie’s most well-constructed and rewarding element, which makes it difficult to complain about.
Creed-Miles, previously excellent in Netflix’s The Sandman, is far and away the film’s standout, playing an earthy, almost feral Marianne with wide eyes and disheveled hair who steals every scene she’s in (despite the liberal application of frequently horrendous toadstool-shaped bonnets). It certainly doesn’t hurt that in an adaptation that dials down Austen’s biting style of humor, Marianne gets almost all of its best lines. Edgar-Jones makes for a likable enough Elinor, all stoic reserve and stiff upper lip that masks a desperate vulnerability stifled underneath; her best moments arrive on the rare occasions she gets to let her true feelings loose. (Her late-in-film confrontation with Willoughby is particularly satisfying: More people need to tell that man about himself.)
But while the effortlessly charming MacKay is a world-class yearner as an Edward trapped by his own relentless goodness, Nordrum feels strangely miscast. For Nordrum, trying to follow in Alan Rickman’s footsteps was probably destined to be a thankless (and nigh on impossible) task, but this Brandon’s dour intensity is frequently more off-putting than charming.
Oakley’s effort is not equal to Lee’s 1995 masterpiece. But it also doesn’t have to—and probably shouldn’t—be. After all, we revisit these classic stories not because they weren’t made right before, but because the art of adaptation is fluid, shifting as our culture changes and new generations reevaluate why these tales matter in the first place. And what’s more swoon-worthy than that?
Sense and Sensibility (PG, 136 mins.) opens in theaters on Oct. 16.
