Directed By Georgia Oakley

Starring – Daisy Edgar-Jones, Esme Creed-Miles, Caitriona Balfe

The Plot – An irresistible new take on Jane Austen’s iconic Sense and Sensibility: a charming, witty, and deeply relatable story of love and sisterhood.

Rated PG for some thematic elements, partial nudity and brief violence.

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY – Official Trailer 2 [HD] – Only In Theaters October 16

POSITIVES

Appraising uniqueness and originality to a centuries old story that has been adapted for the screen seven different times before this new take, is easier said than done, however there’s an earnestness and intimacy to Oakley’s intended direction that offers a more insightfully introspective delve into the depths of these characters than ever before, featuring some subtly effective changes the plotting and framing that makes it feel like the audience are interpreting this story for the very first time. This is most especially impactful in the directional narrative remaining firmer by the side of Marianne than other previous adaptations, emphasizing how the future generation of Dashwood women will differ from the previous ones, in part because of the unorthodox qualities that set Marianne apart from the traditionalized expectations of women serving as extensions of their husbands, and in turn articulating her as more of the rule-breaking trailblazer against the commonality of arranged marriages, which allows the audience to fully interpret the bittersweet feeling of the character’s inevitable fate, in which she sacrifices increments of her “sensibility” for some of Elinor’s “sense” in making the choice for a partner hers and hers alone. This newfound compelling angle certainly affords Oakley to take ample opportunity of her ambitious 126-minute runtime, specifically in the patiently meditated approach to readying Diana Reid’s storytelling that allows more development to each of the individualized dynamics between these characters, but also unrelenting emphasis to live and revel in the pain of the sisters’ traumatic heartbreaks for typically longer than Victorian era narratives are known for maximizing, culminating in a gut-wrenching second half to the story that not only contextualizes the complexity of love, in all of its unpredictable turns and obscured clarity, but also a slightly deviated ending resolution that correlates all the more seamlessly with the distinct differences in Elinor and Marianne’s personalities. This might make it sound like Oakley has a penchant for the dramatic, but the unforeseen reality is that so much of the movie’s opening half is surprisingly more whimsically silly and affectionate than I ever saw coming, making it all the easier to indulge effortlessly to such financially unrelatable characters, regardless of how their occasionally cryptic actions complicate the dependable empathy paid to their most challenging of moments. The humor is influentially resonant without demeaning the magnitude of the material, specifically while playing alongside the untimely move of the Dashwood family that has uprooted them from a life of lavish surroundings to a stuffily claustrophobic cottage, and while the comedic enabling of the opening half and dramatic dire of the second could easily shape some jarring tonal shifts that exhaust the film’s most meaningful moments long before they’ve ever had a chance to devastate, the reality is that Oakley smoothly executes the sequencing in ways that make every emotional shift feel naturally earned and authentically enacted, speaking wonders to the roller-coaster of emotions during whirlwind romance that takes advantage of the vulnerabilities of these sisters. Deviating back to Reid’s writing for a second, the contrasting conventionalism of the dialogue is perhaps most integral to maintaining my vested interests as smoothly as it did for the entirety of the aforementioned runtime, where much of the stuffy and outdated 19th century vocabulary is refurbished for effortless translations that still hammer home the same contextual intention of these interactions, without convoluting the clarity with phrases that require a Google translation. Even within the simplistic splendor of the ways these conversations convey so much premeditated psychology within these characters, it never feels like a concentrated gimmick of its own to unnecessarily hip up the atmospheric engagement, instead grounding so much of the detailed dialogue in feelings the feelings of its characters rather than the expressions of the time frame, in turn offering us advantageous insight into the kind of romantic radiance and profound pain that offers us the single most intimate appeal to their internalized anguish that grows all the more unavoidable with each passing minute. This noteworthy mention of intimacy feels like the perfect time to transition over to the technical mastery of the production, beginning with Arnaud Potier’s 35mm canvas, which constantly makes the intoxicating essence of the imagery feel like a watercolor painting of the most vividly enamoring transfixing. As to where the 1995 Ang Lee adaptation of the novel championed a grander scope and scale that made the extensive magnitude of the setting feel fully realized and inescapably resonating, Potier options to instead spend the majority of his shots at an arms reach of these characters, where the randomness of establishing scenic imagery and cerebral movements alongside the characters makes the reverence and reality of the presentation feel like a collection of unearthed memories from the subconscious of the person with the key to unlock them, sufficing a warm and magnetic glow to the connectivity of these characters that would rather remain close and concerning rather than distant and detaching. Combine this with the rushing romance of Roger Goula’s swooning and sweeping score, that constantly washes over the audience like waves of inescapable emotion, and you achieve a correlating presentation that intensifies so much of what these characters are experiencing in real time, crafting a more than accessible aqueduct into the tank of tears that may require refilling by the end of the engagement. Last but certainly not least, the extensive ensemble is just as responsible for providing a modernistic merit to the air of their portrayals, particularly Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esme Creed-Miles, who enrich a dependable sisterly chemistry so believably endearing that we often revel in the comforts of their togetherness to counteract what each feels when isolated with the object of their affections. Daisy instills a refined quality to Elinor that feels like the antithesis to everything conveyed about Marianne, with her most commanding moments coming from both her agonized longing for Edward, that feels glaringly evident in even the ways she looks at him, but also her commitment to propriety, that allows her the stoicism to guard her tender heart, with Daisy finding understated ways to constantly gravitate that pain. As for Esme, while I was initially worried that her casting was just another example of a nepo baby (Her mother is Samantha Morton) taking another part from someone more deserving, she quickly puts those premature fears to bed with a star-making performance that feels like the combustible ingredient introduced to any environment she invades, with Creed-Miles unloading an edgy kind of directness that not only cuts through the regality of her family’s trivial traditionalism, but also a strength through vulnerability that is conveyed so loudly in the intense trepidation of her transparent facial registries, allowing her the freedom and capability to steal the attention and focus of this film away from big name actors with decades of experience on her.

NEGATIVES

Among the many Jane Austen adaptations that I’ve experienced over the years, this incarnation of Sense & Sensibility is among my very favorite, but even despite that ambitious designation, there’s still some incremental issues that I had with the film that momentarily detracted upon my gushing praises for it, beginning with some glaringly distracting shots of C.G backdrops from the production, that intruded on the period piece immersion of the engagement. While it’s merely relegated to two different establishing shots, ranging at a few seconds of screen time apiece, because the production is so meticulous in every foundational detail of set designs, wardrobe, and on-site filming locations, the occasional artificiality condemns those rare moments when Potier’s captures entails a grander scope to the storytelling, with landscapes so vapidly hollow and obvious that they condense everything that feels tangibly influential to this particular setting, without any semblance of requirement for why it was justifiably introduced in the first place. Aside from some shoddy computer-generated imagery, my only other problem with the film pertained to some imbalance in the air of depiction from a screenplay that still feels overwhelmed and underdeveloped by its over two hour runtime, particularly in the disappearance of Mrs. Dashwood and Margaret from the film’s second half, but also some background articulation to Edward Ferrars’ character, to which the script is never interested in pursuing. If you’re not a major fan of either of these characters, then their absence from the script’s prioritized impulses won’t bother you, but considering Edward is my favorite character from the novel, there are unfortunate aspects in his arranged marriage to Lucy Steele, as well as a bit of a rushed love-at-first-sight inkling with Elinor, that felt a bit sloppy around its initial edges, even with George McKay and Daisy Edgar-Jones having legitimate chemistry that permeates off of the screen whenever they share it with one another. It’s part of the reason why I think this story lends itself more to a series format rather than a feature length movie, as so many foundational aspects of the book are bound to be sacrificed inevitably in one way or another, and while I’m typically not someone who lets these changes get in the way of enjoying a freshly crafted experience, it did leave these valuably supporting characters feeling not as integral to this incarnation of the story, resulting in some periodic disappointment to their utilizing that took more time than I preferred getting used to.

OVERALL
Sense & Sensibility represents a fresh spin on a celebrated classic, with the sophomore showcasing of Georgia Oakley’s daring direction garnering a vividly produced and intimately endearing experience that embraces the vulnerabilities of love and their lingering consequences a lot more thoroughly than past predecessors. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esme Creed-Miles put on a stirring showcase that evokes dimensionality to what each represent in the film’s title, and while Diana Reid’s contextualizing of Jane Austen’s timelessly relevant material occasionally finds flaws in the lack of value cemented to meaningfully beloved characters, this latest success proves once more why the story is adapted so frequently in the public eye, proving that even in ways that love constantly evolves, its vulnerabilities remain the same.

My Grade: 8.2 or B+