{"id":631573,"date":"2026-09-21T16:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T16:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631573\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T16:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T16:42:12","slug":"sense-and-sensibility-review-moody-naturalistic-spin-on-a-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631573\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Sense and Sensibility’ Review: Moody, Naturalistic Spin on a Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt\u2019s been over 30 years since Ang Lee\u2019s \u201cSense and Sensibility<\/a>\u201d became (for this critic, as for many) the Platonic ideal of the Jane Austen adaptation. Lush but controlled, dryly funny (thanks to Emma Thompson\u2019s Oscar-winning script) in that chatty, cheeky, keenly perceptive Austen way, Lee\u2019s classic also boasted a formidable cast to unleash a floodgate of big, ugly-cry-inducing emotions by its finale. All of which is to say that Georgia Oakley<\/a> had a tough act to follow in taking on the beloved tale of two sisters navigating matters of the heart in two vastly different ways. Though slightly muted (in both feeling and color palette) by comparison, Oakley\u2019s moody, naturalistic spin on the Austen touchstone is a solid undertaking. It\u2019s also a confident, bigger-budget follow-up to her BAFTA-winning debut \u201cBlue Jean,\u201d a poignant Thatcher-era queer drama; that film\u2019s restrained yet tactile intimacy translates well to a late 18th-century England of stifled desire and pastoral exuberance.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s an earthy romanticism to Oakley\u2019s vision of the times, with shots of quivering cattails, dew-spotted spiders, and floating lilypads complementing the roiling inner lives of sisters Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones<\/a>) and Marianne (Esm\u00e9 Creed-Miles) Dashwood. The younger Marianne is the more daring and vivacious of the two \u2014 a lightly shaky camera is on her heels as she adventures through the forest and receives news of their father\u2019s death \u2014 and thankfully Oakley avoids the corny Mother Earth symbolism (\u00e0 la \u201cHamnet\u201d) that woodsy women amid sun-dappled pastures can so easily invite. The film\u2019s natural splendor is pleasing, of course, but Oakley makes a point to show the grit and exhaustion of scaling hills and taking multi-day journeys by horse carriage \u2014 tough physical realities matched by the cruel social conventions that upend the Dashwoods\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

\n\tHewing close to the novel\u2019s major plot beats, Diana Reid\u2019s script efficiently lays out the stakes, as mother Dashwood (Caitr\u00edona Balfe) finds herself penniless and powerless against the takeover of her family\u2019s estate by John Dashwood (Tom Brooke), her dead husband\u2019s only male heir from his first marriage. Before she and the girls relocate to a modest seaside cottage in Devon, they suffer insults from John\u2019s comically stingy wife Fanny (a wonderfully catty Stacy Martin) while Elinor meet-cutes with Fanny\u2019s brother Edward (George MacKay<\/a>), their mutual affection growing over wholesome nature walks and portrait sessions. (In a sweet reversal of the typical gendered gaze, it\u2019s Elinor who draws Edward.) Sadly, Edward is too spineless and, er, sensible to follow his heart and lets a confused Elinor slip away when her family finally retreats to their new isolated home, courtesy of the kindly but coarse Mrs. Jennings (Fiona Shaw).<\/p>\n

\n\tFor her part, the blunt and free-spirited Marianne finds her match in the dashing Willoughby (Frank Dillane<\/a>, the face of Harris Dickinson\u2019s \u201cUrchin\u201d), brushing off the endearingly awkward advances of Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum, from \u201cThe Worst Person in the World,\u201d speaking in a placid baritone). In Devon, Marianne and Willoughby enjoy a rustic romance of piano dueting and cliffside snuggling, and though he makes quite the statement in giving her a white steed, he never commits before heading back to London and remaining there for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

\n\tLondon is where Edward is, too, so when Mrs. Jennings plans a trip to the capital, Marianne and Elinor eagerly tag along. The girls\u2019 weathered white gowns and tousled, stallionesque manes confer a cottage-core modernity that\u2019s set in contrast to the gilded interiors and tightly-wound updos of their London acquaintances. Between the two sisters, Elinor\u2019s prudence and Marianne\u2019s joie de vivre are charted out via Holly Blakey\u2019s enchanting choreography: In the country, Marianne and Willoughby partake in a riotous, rollicking folk dance, while Elinor and Edward cross paths at a buzzy London ball where they dance a comparably restrained, yet slinky, sensual waltz. <\/p>\n

\n\tOakley\u2019s beautifully textured worldbuilding \u2014 of soft, candlelit interiors; hunted game hanging on wall hooks; and so very many neat dogs (pugs, sheepdogs, mastiffs, whippets!) \u2014 is paired with a quivering psychological realism. Low-angle close-ups betray the fragility of Elinor\u2019s self-composure when Edward tells her that he is engaged to another woman; and Marianne is a jittery bundle of broken idealism when she finds Willoughby arm-in-arm with a wealthy fianc\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\n\tThese lovers\u2019 quarrels unfold with a touching sincerity to Roger Goula\u2019s wistful score, though Oakley\u2019s more grounded drama also feels oddly safe, with a seriousness of tone that strips away some of the wit and comedy that makes Austen\u2019s work, well, Austenesque. And though players like Edgar-Jones and MacKay make for perfectly tender lovebirds, they don\u2019t exactly breathe new life into their characters. <\/p>\n

\n\tThis might be the difference between being a gifted actor and a real star, which Lee\u2019s \u201cSense and Sensibility\u201d had across the board. Creed-Miles\u2019 sharp-tongued, twinkle-eyed Marianne comes close to that inexplicable magnetism, though the script, which makes her sound like a broken record with the number of times she goes on about passion and passionate men, renders her a tad clich\u00e9d. In terms of casting, what Oakley\u2019s \u201cSense and Sensibility\u201d does confirm is that Dillane\u2019s recent breakthrough was no fluke. His Willoughby is a slouching, smug-faced scoundrel \u2014 a rake all his own, and perhaps the only major presence in the film that brings an unstudied lightness and humor to this world of breath-held decorum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been over 30 years since Ang Lee\u2019s \u201cSense and Sensibility\u201d became (for this critic, as for many)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[69469,93,268064,47243,47454,268065,61,60,270,21294],"class_list":["post-631573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-daisy-edgar-jones","tag-entertainment","tag-esme-creed-miles","tag-frank-dillane","tag-george-mackay","tag-georgia-oakley","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-sense-and-sensibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}