Sound Like A 19th Century Soap Opera, Sense And Sensibility Is An Awfully Good One

Sense and Sensibility shows how women in upper-class Georgian England, though privileged, had relatively few choices in life. Romantics and anyone with a penchant for this author's work will have a ball. This beautiful, humorous movie creates a buzz of excitement around the Dashwood sisters' romantic intrigue. Some of the characters you'll love to hate (the Dashwoods' horrible sister-in-law and gloating Miss Steele), and others you'll absolutely adore (little Margaret Dashwood, the future pirate).

Sense And Sensibility tells the story of the Dashwood family, who, after the death of Mr. Dashwood, lose all their wealth to the son of Mr. Dashwood's prior marriage. The four Dashwood women, the mother and three daughters (Elinor [Emma Thompson], Marianne [Kate Winslet], and young Margaret), must find a way to make ends meet as the elder daughters face the daunting problems of love and romance.

Competing for the affections of Marianne are the dashing playboy Willoughby (newcomer Greg Wise) and the upright Colonel Brandon (Alan Rickman). Meanwhile, Elinor finds herself falling for Edward (Hugh Grant), who, without spoiling the plot, isn't completely forthright with Elinor about his availability. Throughout it all, the high society gossips make everyone squirm with their constant chatter.

Sound like a 19th century soap opera? It is, and an awfully good one at that. But on top of a nicely-crafted story, Thompson has enriched what could have been a dull period piece (see Persuasion for a frightening example of this) with an unexpectedly hilarious series of vignettes that underscores the endless procession of romantic misunderstandings and entanglements that weave through the girls' lives. And oddly, though the romance and courtship of that bygone era is archaic, the scenes are equally relevant today. Of course, it's not all mirth and hilarity: judging from the bawling woman sitting next me, this film can really pull the tears out, too.

Thompson and especially Winslet (who was so exquisite in 1994's Heavenly Creatures are perfectly matched as near opposites who find some common ground as the film progresses. Grant and the other supporting cast members are also admirable. Taiwanese director Ang Lee infuses the film with some variety and cleverness, too. In all, the film really comes together as a whole.

What makes this adaptation so endearing is its loving depiction of the Dashwood family as a high-spirited and supportive clan. One trio of 12-year-old girls considers this a favorite and admits to watching it repeatedly. For them, the movie strikes the same wistful chord as the blockbusterTitanic, and it even ends happily!

"Sense and Sensibility" was the first and one of the least of Jane Austen's novels; she wrote it in 1795, but it was not published for 16 years, until she had found the courage to declare herself as a novelist. It was written by a young woman who ostensibly had little experience of the world - although her fiction proves she missed little that occurred on her domestic stage - and the story reflects that orientation, as a mother and her three daughters wait passively while all of the interesting men in the vicinity disappear on unexplained missions to London.

In a modern story, the women would have demanded explanations.

Forced to rely on the assistance of relatives in order to find shelter and subsistence, Elinor, Marianne, their mother (Gemma Jones) and younger sister Margaret (Emilie Francois) are shuttled from one set of relatives to another. Along the way, the contrary sisters each fall in love with two equally diverse men: Marianne, the roguish Willoughby (Greg Wise); Elinor, the loyal Edward Ferrars (Hugh Grant). A third romantic prospect arrives in the form of the devoted, yet dreary Colonel Brandon (Alan Rickman). However, obstacles soon enter into the picture. Relationships begin to sour and marriage becomes talked in survivalist, rather than romantic terms.

Expectations for Sense and Sensibility were certainly high amongst Austen’s acolytes. Prior to the release of Lee’s film, there had only been one solitary feature-length adaptation of Austen’s works, Robert Z. Leonard’s respected attempt at Pride and Prejudice (1940). In the fifty-five years between the release of Leonard’s Greer Garson vehicle and Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, Austen’s admirers curiously had to make do with less than a dozen British television miniseries. Yet, all of a sudden, six Austen adaptations appeared in the space of two years: including two television miniseries and Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, a modernized revamp of Emma.

In hindsight, there was arguably no better choice suited to recreate Austen’s novel of impulse and reason. Ang Lee’s previous experience in family dramas and comedies offered a foundation for his exploration of the intra-familial dynamics affecting Austen’s Dashwood sisters. Furthermore, as Ang Lee has often suggested in interviews before and after the film’s release, his filmography has frequently touched on the conflicting tensions between 'sense' and 'sensibility': free will versus responsibility to others (Pushing Hands; Eat Drink Man Woman); the fulfillment of personal desires versus society’s moral codes (Lust, Caution;Brokeback Mountain; The Wedding Banquet).

What gives "Sense and Sensibility" its tension and mystery is that the characters rarely say what they mean. There is great gossip within the women's sphere, but with men, the conversation loops back upon itself in excruciating euphemisms, leaving the women to puzzle for weeks over what was or was not said.

As the story opens, the Dashwood estate passes to a stingy male heir, who provides only a few hundred pounds a year to his father's second wife and her three daughters. The widow Dashwood (Gemma Jones) and her girls find themselves torn from the life of country gentry and forced to live on this meager income in a cottage generously supplied by a distant relative.