Sense and Sensibility

[damemaggiescurledupperlip]

Not sure about this one. Ravishingly shot, but …

Elinor and Edward were true to the book, but Marianne appeared to have morphed into Cathy from Wuthering Heights, Sir John Middleton into Sir John Falstaff, Lady Middleton into Mary Bennett, and the Colonel into Professor Bhaer

The never brushed hair was very distracting

It was Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs but surely it would still be okay now since Albert was a woman. Unless we have to have a trans identified female playing the role of a woman masquerading as a man!

But in Albert Nobbs, the character is meant to be female living as a man. Are we meant to believe that Mr Palmer in this S&S is a biological male or is the character meant to be trans/a female living as a man?

I think we are meant to pretend to believe that Mr Palmer is a biological male in the 2026 film (ETA and that a female with a NB identity playing the part does not break the verisimilitude).

Having said that, the part was so diminished that it was only briefly grating.

The discussion upthread about the plot changes was interesting, as I have not read the book. I feel like I should go and correct that.

I think Mama and Margaret stayed at Barton Cottage. I can't remember how far Barton was from Delaford. Obviously Mrs. Dashwood had some income but Sir John spent his life bringing game and fruit and invitations to dine anyway. Perhaps the Colonel could offer a bit of financial help but too Mamma and Margaret went to Delaford often.

"Elinor's marriage divided her as little from her family as could well be contrived without rendering the cottage at Barton entirely useless; for her mother and sisters spent much more than half their time with her."

Later, after Marianne has married, "Mrs. Dashwood was prudent enough to remain at the cottage, without attempting a removal to Delaford; and fortunately for Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, when Marianne was taken from them, Margaret had reached an age highly suitable for dancing, and not very ineligible for being supposed to have a lover."

Saw it today. I thought it was very, very silly.

1995 Greg Wise, let me count the ways ... 😍😍😍

Of course they loved one another! My speculation is about how their relationship would alter once they were no longer of the same social standing. Elinor and Edward, depending on how many children they had, would just about manage a harassed gentility on £850, whereas the Brandons were going to be properly wealthy, and their landlords/patrons.

I can only go by the last sentence of the book

Enjoyed it but the very obvious female playing a male was irritating. First half better than the second. Dancing was…odd.

Saw it tonight

likes
Elinor and Edward. Good chemistry and acting and felt the right age
nice scenery
Mrs Jennings
Margaret was fun
Lots of lovely dogs

dislikes
Marianne didn’t have the passion where was the desperation and the yearning in London and looked dreadful. Her hair!!!
just awful
mr palmer. What a joke. He is a great character complete waste

the dual. Nuts

colnel Brandon underused. No character development. Love is a slow burn not turned on a sixpence at a made up dual

mother underused
Lucy steel underused
no wedding

Oh good I forgot the dancing Awful and also the massive homemade bonnets????

I loved it 🩷

The dancing was very odd indeed, not that I am an expert on Georgian balls. But bending over backwards and lifting people up seemed most unlikely. And another thing for every adaptation ever,the dancing is always perfectly choreographed and everyone in step. Pretty sure that in reality, you'd get people turning left when they were meant to be turning right, bumping into ine another. Obviously it wouldn't look as good to film, but I just can't believe everyone always danced perfectly.

The hair really annoyed me, and Marianne at the start running about with her dress so untied. I mean, they might not have dressed up as for a day in London, but i reckonthey would at least have done their hair. LAnd it did feel Wuthering Heights, even though Dartmoor can be pretty remote and bleak.

I wasn't too bothered by Mr Palmer, as he barely featured.

The best adaptation was the 1980 BBC series, because some of it was filmed where I lived, and 7 year old me and my younger sister were taken to see the filming, and we were allowed to sit in the actual carriage they used,which apparentlyQueen Victoriahad been in - and not even Emma Thompson could surpass that. I realise no one else will quite have this slant on it, mind you.

But also, there are other authors of classic fiction besides Austen. It feels like Emma, S&S and P&P and Persuasion are the only things anyone ever wants to adapt. I suppose there's s lot of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, too.

I love that adaptation too - with Irene Richard as Elinor, straight from her turn as Charlotte in the excellent P&P the year before , and Tracey someone as Marianne

and Hugh Laurie as Mr Palmer!

Hugh Laurie is Mr Palmer in the 1995 film.

In Elinor and Edward's dance, I couldn't work out what was happening after the two hands in gloves. It seemed to be a whirling waste of film time.

You’re right! Am mixing up my adaptations.

Dislikes

They made the woman that Willoughby seduced the ex of Brandon rather than the daughter of Brandon's ex who became Brandon's ward when her mother died. Just why? It makes Brandon look less faithful, falling for Marianne when Eliza had only just died, and Willoughby looks less bad because he hasn't seduced a very young teenage girl.

The change to Lucy and Edward's engagement

The end where Elinor sends Edward away after telling him "we've only ever been friends" which made no sense when they had had several candid chats about loving each other romantically

The loose hair. I'm not a huge purist about this stuff but I do dislike the #notlikethoseothergirls signalling. If all the women had had loose hair, I'd be much less bothered. (Plus the fire hazard with all those candles!)

The female nepot-baby Mr Palmer, especially when compared to Hugh Laurie's hilarious performance

Likes

The gorgeous nature shots throughout

The lack of romanticising the old stuff. So the dark nights with just a few candles are genuinely dark, the bath Marianne takes look miserable, and you can feel their discomfort and boredom on those long carriage rides. The awkward shuffling sounds during the dances.

Brandon and Marianne. Their last scene was lovely. I think CB and EF are not strong heroes in the book, so any adaptation that adds to them is good.

I like that Marianne was angrier than Kate Winslet's version. She is devastated but raging over Willoughby.

Elionor was great.

All those lovely dogs!

Fanny was so awful

I agree with all of this. Margaret in particular was excellent, and I loved Elinor and Edward too.

Mr Palmer just didn't work- it reminded me of plays we used to put on at my (all girls) school. No problem with trans casting generally and there are times it can work well- I thought Elliot Page was great in the Odyssey, for example- but here it was just very strange and am dram, as if the real actor was ill so someone's sister had stepped in to help out.

Marianne is always an annoying character but particularly so here. Brandon was perhaps closer to the book than Alan Rickman's but I much preferred hot older Brandon. Willoughby also not very attractive (which sounds like a shallow point but surely he needs to be hot to drive the plot?) and what was with that hat?

All that said, I went with teen DD who had neither read the book nor seen any adaptations and she loved it and was in floods of tears for practically the whole second half, so maybe I'm just no longer the target market.

I was astonished to find myself wiping away tears at the end … 🤷‍♀️

The lack of romanticising the old stuff. So the dark nights with just a few candles are genuinely dark

Yes, I think it's always a challenge - if you show it too much how dark and dingy it would have been when the sun wasn't out, then you risk no one being able to see what's actually going on.

I really liked it, didn’t expect to

Samantha Morton 2.0 would have been more suited to playing Cathy in Wuthering Heights.

Now, that could have been interesting. Though the casting of her SIL would have had to change.

Well, there's a line of descent definitely from the Romantic (in the literary movement sense) Marianne (moody, free-spirited, immoderate in her joys and sorrows, likes long walks in nature etc) and Cathy in WH. Although WH is written a generation and more later than S and S, they're set at roughly the same time -- 1790s (with the 'now' frame of WH in 1801-2), so Marianne and Cathy could have met.

Is Samatha Morton's daughter not good? (Haven't seen the film yet.) I think SM is brilliant.

I wouldn't say that she wasn't good- it was a strange and uncompromising performance (like SM in that way)- much less amenable/likeable than KW's Marianne, more difficult, less pretty (I don't mean that the actress is less pretty, but rather that she wasn't playing Marianne as a conventionally attractive girl who happens to be a bit away with the fairies, but as someone genuinely living in her emotions and entirely lacking self-awareness).

So in a sense it was a very good performance but maybe not entirely Austen's Marianne, who I always thinking of as half genuine Romantic sensibility and half enjoying her own striking of a romantic pose.