Daisy Edgar-Jones delivers a performance marked by strength and vulnerability as Elinor Dashwood.Alex Bailey/Supplied
Sense and Sensibility
Directed by Georgia Oakley
Written by Diana Reid, based on the novel by Jane Austen
Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, George MacKay and Esme Creed-Miles
Rating: PG
Run time: 132 minutes
Release date: Oct. 16
Critic’s Pick
“To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.” Such is the sentiment likely shared by many devotees of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, which has now been adapted five times for the screen, each version not quite surpassing the necessarily high expectations set by the author’s original 1811 work. (Ang Lee’s 1995 film, starring Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, and Hugh Grant, comes closest to hitting the sweet spot between snappy wit and existential yearning.)
So you could forgive Austen-ites for approaching yet another adaptation of her first published novel with the kind of trepidation that Colonel Brandon might adopt when inching closer to Marianne Dashwood: this is a scenario ripe for embarrassment, even mortifying disaster. And yet, British director Georgia Oakley’s new, slightly more grounded and modernized (in spirit, not setting) take on Sense and Sensibility is a refreshing delight bound to beguile both Austen acolytes and those who don’t know their prides from their prejudices.
Edgar-Jones and Creed-Miles play the Dashwood sisters, whose contrasting approaches to love are at the heart of the film.Courtesy of Focus Features/Supplied
Stripping the material of much of its pageantry and politeness, Oakley’s film – equipped with a lean but by no means spare screenplay by Diana Reid – positions the 19th-century Dashwood family in the kind of dire straits that feel 21st-century relatable. After losing her husband and then her estate, the warm but stoic Mrs. Dashwood (Caitriona Balfe) must move her three daughters – the headstrong Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones), the hopelessly romantic Marianne (Esme Creed-Miles), and the young and optimistic Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) – to a ramshackle cottage in the rural outskirts of Devonshire.
The women adapt to their new, no-frills lifestyle with grace and good humour, aided by the charity of Mrs. Jennings (Fiona Shaw), a distant relative who isn’t quite aware of just how distant she should be. But Mrs. Dashwood is also hoping that her two eldest daughters will soon climb out of relative poverty and into the embrace of handsome, and well-funded, husbands. The suitors who do come calling, though, don’t arrive without their own complications.
Oakley's adaptation brings a more grounded, emotionally complex approach to Jane Austen's classic tale of love and longing.Alex Bailey/Supplied
For Marianne, there is the dashing John Willoughby (Frank Dillane), who promises much but delivers little, but also the stoic, if dull, Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum). Elinor, meanwhile, finds a spark with Edward Ferrars (George MacKay), though the young man is also hiding a secret that threatens both of their futures. Whatever shall the Dashwoods do?
Instead of taking the kind of eternally sunny, things-will-surely-work-out approach that Lee chose in his 1995 iteration, Oakley meets the material with a vision that feels as enjoyably tangled and knotty as the internal turmoil roiling Elinor and Marianne themselves. This is not a movie in which emotions are confined to the spaces of finely appointed drawing rooms and carriages, but the wild, untamed lands of Devonshire, where Elinor seeks to lose herself with abandon and fury. Oakley’s version of Regency England isn’t exactly gritty – there are still glamorous balls and finely appointed gowns and fabulously designed estates – but there is a current of itchy, wounded restlessness to the material that makes it feel less staged and perhaps artificial than in previous adaptations.
Edgar-Jones stars as Elinor Dashwood, Creed-Miles as Marianne Dashwood, Bodhi Rae Breathnach as Margaret Dashwood and Caitríona as Mrs. Dashwood.Courtesy of Focus Features/Supplied
This sense of emotional authenticity extends, or perhaps is more a direct result of, the beautiful, heartbreaking performances from the cast, who all understand the material without ever feeling chained by it. Edgar-Jones, who hasn’t had this generous of an opportunity since her work on the Normal People miniseries, feels every inch an Elinor fit for modern-day audiences: strong, yes, but also unafraid of letting herself embrace vulnerability and the kind of foolishness that comes with infatuation.
While the star is surrounded by a robust supporting cast of good men and bad – including MacKay’s warm and empathetic take on a man torn between love and honour, and Dillane’s delightfully slimy cad – it is Creed-Miles who steals every heart available as Marianne. There is one moment deep into the film, during which Marianne unleashes her rage at Willoughby while caught in a rainstorm, that will push audiences out of their seat, so real is the urge to comfort the on-screen heroine, and then physically trounce the object of her misplaced affections.
“Know your own happiness,” Austen once wrote. It is advice that Oakley has well taken.