Austen Power: "Sense and Sensibility"

In Theaters:

“Sense and Sensibility” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐) – It’s apparently British common law that a film or TV adaptation of a Jane Austen novel must be in production at all times and in all seasons. Here’s the latest iteration of the clashing Dashwood sisters, and, in the movie’s defense, it's been 31 years – wait, what? – since Ang Lee’s ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ version in 1995, so I guess we’re due for a new one. It’s fine, very nice and not much more, nor does it really need to be. Georgia Oakley (“Blue Jean”) directs from Diana Reid’s script, which tinkers with the source by making levelheaded Elinor Dashwood (Daisy Edgar-Jones) come in for a climactic humbling alongside her mutton-headed younger sister Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles). Since Austen clearly favored sense over sensibility, either this represents some creeping 21st-century “both sides”-ism or, more likely, the movies’ general penchant for nudging Jane Austen adaptations out of Regency-era tartness and into early Gothic tempestuousness because it’s, y’know, more cinematic.

Catríona Balfe (TV’s “Outlander”) plays Mother Dashwood, and I remain irked that an actress of such ripely intelligent sensuality on the small screen is permitted only to play disappointed moms on the large. More crucially, the chief hurdle for any adaptation of “S&S” is the character of Marianne, who needs to be played just right if she’s to seem a young woman of passion rather than an adolescent ninny. Creed-Miles, sad to say, falls on the ninny side of the fence, and a viewer's patience with Marianne may end before the movie does. But Herbert Nordrum smolders discreetly in the role of Colonel Brandon, Bodhi Rae Breathnach is charming as the youngest Dashwood sister Margaret, and, look, there’s the great Irish actress Fiona Show hamming to the skies as the sister’s cheerfully vulgar aunt, Mrs. Jennings.

What saves this “Sense and Sensibility” – what gives it both sense and sensibility – is Edgar-Jones ("Normal People") as Elinor and George McKay ("1917") as her sweetly hapless soulmate Edward Ferrars. Both actors know how to rein it in and make repression seem sexy, and their scenes together have the growing glow of intimacy that can arise between two shy people who recognize each other’s worth and are hot for it. Whenever Oakley and cinematographer Arnaud Potier hunker down with these two, the film suddenly becomes something special, and Roger Goula’s rhapsodic score – quite beautiful in its cod-Max Richter way and handy for any Jane Austen cosplay you may want to indulge in – holds the two in its hands like a pair of sparrows in a storm.

That’s actually an appropriate metaphor given the director's insistence on larding visuals of romping English flora and fauna throughout “Sense and Sensibility,” well past the point where a viewer wants to cry uncle. Indeed, how many shots are we meant to take of red kites soaring majestically through the air, turtledoves cooling suggestively on the soundtrack, and bees pollinating every flower they see, the little sluts? The only thing missing here is a shot of badgers fucking. And I bet it’s not for lack of trying.

On Demand: