The First Review! Sense and Sensibility by Preston Marshall

Sense and Sensibility. Dir. Ang Lee. Perf. Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant,

Alan Rickman. Columbia Pictures, 1995. VHS. (Personal Star Rating 3 out 4).

             In a nutshell, Sense and Sensibility follows the story of the Dashwood girls, Marianne and Elinor, after their father dies forcing them to leave their family estate and move out to a small cottage in the country owned by Sir John Middleton and his mother-in-law who are exceedingly nosey and obnoxious and have a very strange relationship. They have many visitors including a Colonel Christopher Brandon, a Mr. Edward Ferrars, and a Mr. John Willoughby. Elinor falls in love with Mr. Ferrars, not knowing that he is already secretly engaged with her friend Lucy Steele. Marianne is immediately infatuated with Mr. Willoughby and believed they were to be married, but after he leaves to go to London learns that Willoughby has proposed to another woman. Marianne is of course crushed and falls ill. During her time of sorrow the Colonel Brandon steps in to comfort her both physically and emotionally and she falls in love with him and they decide to get married. Before the wedding Mr. Ferrars confesses his love for Elinor and tells her he has broken off his engagement to Ms. Steele and then proposes to Elinor. The film ends with a double wedding of the two sisters to Colonel Brandon and Mr. Ferrars.

            Having never read Sense and Sensibility I can’t comment on how well this film was adapted from the book, but comparing it what we’ve read so far in Pride and Prejudice I can say that it feels true to the tone, style and pacing of Austen’s writing. I think since there are so many similarities between the stories and characters in Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility that I feel like I can draw this conclusion. The basic plot of two older sisters trying to find husbands is similar to the plot of Pride and Prejudice however the film Sense and Sensibility seems to put a greater emphasis on this than the book of Pride and Prejudice. The main character in both of these is the second to oldest daughter and in a lot of ways Jane and Marianne and Elizabeth and Elinor are very similar. Jane and Marianne seem to be defined more by their sensibility whereas Elizabeth and Elinor are defined more by their sense. So in this regard I would say that the film captures well many of the same themes present in Pride and Prejudice.

            I feel like the film was well casted and I believe this was in part due to the fact that Emma Thompson was both the screenwriter and the lead for the film. It seems like she chose people whom she could perform well with since the film does contain a lot of dialogue between characters and the interactions between the characters carries the film. There’s nothing but positives to be said about Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant in the film. Their performances were all very heartfelt and believable. The one actor in the film that particularly interests me, because it was kind of hard to get my head around at first was Alan Rickman. In just about everything I’ve seen him play in before, he plays a villain or at least a character who the audience loves to hate. It was strange for me to see him playing a romantic interest in a film. However, I feel like since the character he played, Colonel Brandon, is not the typical Romantic love interest in that he’s not terribly handsome or romantic and he’s older really makes him an excellent choice for the role. I feel like Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant are kind of go-to actors for a romantic film, but the choice of Alan Rickman was just well done and his performance makes him a very likeable and memorable character.

            Of course this film deals with the marriage market and I feel like I’ve more or less touched on that in early parts, but one of the key themes that I haven’t touched on yet is the small world that women live in. Sense and Sensibility puts Elinor and Marianne in a far smaller world than Jane and Elizabeth are put in in Pride and Prejudice. Austen has mentioned in both Catherine and Pride and Prejudice that if you leave to women alone to a “tete-a-tete” that they will come to hate each other very quickly. I think that idea is really explored in Sense and Sensibility because Elinor and Marianne pretty much are alone in a house together with their mother and younger sister most of the time. And the two of them fight frequently in the film. It’s obvious that they love each other and care about each other, but their proximity really drives them to bitterness towards each other. I also believe that Elinor represents the sense and Marianne represents the sensibility in their duo and by the end of the film I believe we are meant to believe that both of them learn a little bit of the others defining attribute which makes both of them happier in the end.