Is anyone else watching the new Sense and Sensebility atm?

[08aGreatYearForCarmenere]

It is good but quite odd as the casting is strangely similar to the film version, ie they all look and sound very alike.

I don't remember the ages being so explicitly mentioned in S and S ie that Mrs D is 40, Col Brandon 35, Marianne 16 going on 17 etc. Presumably Mrs D was supposed to be implying that Mr D had been 35 when she married him at 17 but that would have made him a very old man for the era at the start whcih I never understood to be the case.

Mrs D was Mr D's second wife of course, so he was considerably older than her. The point Mrs Dashwood is making in the book when she talks about being 40 is that as she herself is only five years older than Col Brandon she takes exception to Marianne proclaiming him to be over the hill at 35. This is after a very funny bit where Marianne declares that it is impossible for anyone as decrepit as Col Brandon to marry for love, although possibly an old maid of 27 might be persuaded to take him on as a sort of nursing case although in her mind that was not true marriage but a rather sordid commercial arrangement.
JA is also very explicit that when Marianne meets Willoughby - she is 16 and a half and he is 25.

I don't remember the bit about mistress of Norland from the book. I think the stuff about their ages is all in there though. A bit like RustyBear I read S&S when I was less than 16 and thought Colonel Brandon must be very old - now I'm older than he is supposed to be he seems like quite a catch .

The interesting thing is that though Col Brandon is only 5 years younger than Mrs Dashwood there is absolutely no possibility that he might consider marrying her rather than her daughters!! Or that she might go after Willoughby or Edward - now there's a thought

Sensibility.

Sorry keep seeing this thread and it's been bugging me! Apols if already been pointed out.

Willoughby's not handsome enough, btw.

Sorry, just easing the stays out of my corset.

I am really enjoying this production because the cast look about the right age and therefore are believable - there is a freshness to Hattie Morahan & Charity Wakefield that I didn't get when watching a 30-something Emma Thompson. There are some quality performances from David Morrisey, Mark Williams & Janet McTeer too. Yes, some of the subtlety has been taken out of it, but I can remember having to re-read S&S as a teenager having got Elinor and Marianne completely wrong in my head and rather overlooking Col Brandon's role.

Ciaron Hinds in Persusion is broodingly good (so much better than Penry Jones) & Sophie Thompson (Emmas's sis) is a very funny Mary Musgrove.

They've also been stressing Marianne's aversion to Col Brandon whilst in the book I think she's merely indifferent.

When she meets Willoughby for the first time in the film it's because she stays out of the house for 2 hours to avoid Brandon and gets caught in the rain & hurts her ankle whilst in the novel she just misreads the weather!

I'm going off the subject here, but on tv adaptations I have to say anything with Ciaran Hinds is just superb. I liked the recent Jane Eyre but about 10 (or less?) years ago he was in a wonderful adaptation with Samantha Morton - that set the standard for all period dramas for me.
Jane Eyre is also the only book I've read in the last few years that has made me weep so much I couldn't see the words - hard to explain to a semi asleep dh!!!

Another thing about that ankle-hurting scene is that in the TV adaptation they followed the film in having Willoughby ride up on his horse and have a good feel of her ankle before carrying her home, whereas in the book he is on foot, with his dogs, and he just picks her up, no ankle-fiddling.
I found it mildly irritating because it was almost like they were doing a remake of the film rather than than adapting the book.
Although I will forgive them this as they have done the Miss Steels so well.

Didn't think last night's episode was much better than the first one and probably won't bother with the final one. Willoughby irritates me beyond belief - I think whoever the actor is he was totally miscast. Elinor just (as I think somebody way down the thread said) seems to stare all the time - very strange. I'm liking the guy playing Brandon more but hating the guy playing Edward - wood cutting, latent aggression - I don't think so! he's meant to be totally tongue-tied for the whole of that visit, not poncing around in his shirt with his jodhpurs straining at the seams!

I liked Robert Ferrars a lot though, though again, strangely like the ET film one. I also liked Lucy, but her hair is a completely different colour to Elinor's so don't really see how they could do the confusion over the ring thing. I don't like Anne; I think she's TOO vulgar - yes, she's supposed to be stupid but I think they've made her too modern seeming - and Margaret.

I quite liked the ball bit though - the Kate Winslett look-a-likey was better there than in any of her previous scenes I felt.

Go on, Janeite, you have to watch the last episode. Even if from behind a cushion.

multitasker I remember that version with Samantha Morton, it was superb.

I thought the woodcutting scene was quite funny, especially when they showed Elinor standing there looking bemused and holding a shawl over her head - I don't think it was raining, she just looked a bit mad.

I just think it's funny that Andrew Davies reckons the woodcutting scene will equal the Darcy in the lake scene - "something for the ladies"...I don't think so.

I thought both Miss Steeles were so good and Robert Ferrars and the look between Robert Ferrars and Lucy Steele really good too. I thought the evening party scene was good - I love that bit where she says "did you not get my letters" and he says " I did receive the information of your being in town which you were so good as to send me" or something like that - it's so damning.

But I think overall it's just not hanging together well - unlike with P&P and Mansfield Park I don't feel it quite knows what point it's trying to make or where it's going.

Janeite you have to watch the last episode else so you can thoroughly critique it!

Well maybe I will watch it from behind the sofa like I used to do with Doctor Who - Willoughby is far more scary than any Dalek!!!

I think my favourite Austen adaptation is the Kate Beckinsale "Emma" - she is great in it and really gets across the character of somebody who you want to dislike for being selfish, over-indulged etc but can't help liking anyway; but the best-cast character is Harriet Smith - I don't know who plays her but she is just so beautiful and delicate and so in awe of Emma; really lovely.

Which brings us nicely on to - "Clueless" - has anybody seen it and do you agree that it is fab?!

I didn't know there was a S & S thread.

Willoughby looks like Frodo in Lord of the Rings. Agree with everyone who says he is not sufficiently (let alone devastatingly) charming and dashing.

I love this Elinor, I just couldn't cope at all with watching Emma Thompson's version - she was absolutely too old. Her voice was perfect though, which is just as well since they have used her voice again.

Agree about Willoughby. And on the subject of Col Brandon, do you think it is possible for someone to play tortured and brooding with such a ROUND face.

LOL Rosa, no I don't.

He just isn't right. Brandon's got to have something about him. And roundness of face isn't it.

excellent point Rosa. I tend to think not.

ponders whether or not round-faced people are immune to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

I LOVED Alan Rickman. He wasn't at all how I'd previously imagined Col Brandon. But he somehow worked.
(Though there were a couple of 'Christ you're a perv Brandon' moments, it's true. Oh no, perhaps that's why I loved him ! )

Do you think it's possible for someone to play tortured and brooding when the audience are sitting there thinking 'You really cocked up your Hollywood career with that bloody awful Sharon Stone film'?

Round, round, get a round, I get a round, I get a round, oo oo oo, I get a round.
Sorry Sue.

you see pol, that is why you are a policywonk and I am a bat. The difference between us is a grasp on recent popular culture.
what Sharon Stone film?
(although obviously that is not the only diff between us, it's a figure of speech.)

most recent pop culture i can manage is Beach Boys, see.

Basic Instinct II. Yes, really. Not that I've actually seen it or anything, but the reviews stank.