Scents and Sensibility

Jane austen fans will get the joke in the title; one of the characters actually makes lotions from flowers. Sisters elinor and marianne (ashley williams, marla sokoloff) are on their own when dad goes to prison for fraud. There's a bit of tongue in cheek.. at one point, the interviewer crumples up the daughter's resume and just tosses it in the trash. Pretty rude. And it's sometimes confusing... people rarely say anyone's name, so it's difficult to know who anyone is. This is about a family trying to stick together. Mom seems to spend all her time with the third sister, who is quite ill, so we don't see much of them. The story is a fun update to austen's older story. Some good acting, some bad acting. Directed by brian brough. Although the writing credit says written by jennifer jan and brittany wiscombe, they do acknowledge jane austen.

Even if the film is predictable and nothing to do with JA¨s book, it has its moments of fun. What I found most distracting in the movie is that Ashley Williams wears a necklace with an A THE WHOLE MOVIE, when her character¨s name starts with an E. The dialogues are unbelievable put in the mouth of grown ups, which by the way, behave like teen agers.

The start of the movie is a little lousy and drastic however as you move further into the characters, the movie starts to gain momentum and catch your heart.

Especially after the entry of the two male characters, the movie picks a nice touch romance and misunderstanding..nothing too innovative but well handled.

The acting of all the main characters is very good. Although Nick Zano does not have a lot of role to play in the movie, he does make an impression with his acting, especially in the scenes in the copy room, showing confidence of a successful professional and awkwardness of someone who just started dating.

The climax of the movie could have been a little elaborate, although it does its job. I would highly recommend watching the movie at leisure.

Based on the novel by Jane Austin, "Sense and Sensibility" the movie does not actually capture the characters and does not even attempt to address the philosophical question, sense vs sensibility that makes the book what it is.

All the characters are there but the acting is insipid, the dialogue stilted and the directing amateur. Whoever did the costume should find another job because the dress of women who "grew up going to golf tournaments and garden parties" looks like it came from Walmart.

Watching awkward scenes with people who don't seem to have any feeling about what they are saying is embarrassing to say the least and I only left it on while I was busy in the kitchen or I would have had to switch it off. My husband already switched it off 5 minutes in after watching a character have a secretive conversation about her boyfriend while sitting a hand span away from him.

Don't waste your time.

Both female leads were excellent in their roles and for a modern twist on an old classic I'd give 9/10 (though I'd rate the whole movie a 6/10). Williams fabulously portrayed the older sister in this movie - very credible depiction of a sensible sibling who tries hard to make everything work. Similarly, Sokoloff managed to pull off a very tough job of making a romance obsessed character likable.

I thought the fall from wealth to the working class was well done. That said, in both Austen's book and this work, the family hardly experiences complete loss nor does the foray into say "working class" or "middle class" really depict the toughness of life for the overwhelming majority of the world.

Definitely appreciated a clean movie (no unnecessary violence, obscenity, vulgarity, etc.)

I'd rate the entire movie middle-of-the-road though (despite the excellent acting of the 2 leads) for a few reasons. First, most of the side characters seemed one-dimensional and over-the-top. Second, though I greatly appreciated the focus on family ties and delving into the foundations of relationships I don't know exactly what the take-away message is from either Austen's book or this movie. Sure, note that we could take either an emotional or sensible approach to finding a life mate. But beyond that what is the main message? Even if you develop really shallow relationships and don't try to understand why, it might just all work out in the next connection? Put your effort on re-claiming lost prestige and status? That might be too harsh for die hard fans of Austen but to me the message of a movie is what carries most weight and I couldn't quite decipher what that message was.