Sense and Sensibility

I have reviewed every adaptation of Sense and Sensibility and find that they are all good in their own way. Many have commented about each version, but I believe the 2008 version is the best version. It had the cast skills of the Emma Thompson 1995 Screenplay and the accuracy of the 1981 adaptation. Many find the 1981 version boring, but I disagree. It is ill-cast. But the screenplay is very good. (I even read that people were angry that Margaret was absent in this version. Actually, she is absent in the book as well. Why Austen even included her in name I cannot understand.) Anyway, if you take the cast of 1995 and put them into the 1981 screenplay, you come out with the 2008 adaption. Hope this is not too confusing.

This 3-hr miniseries seems to me much more faithful to the novel than the 1995 film by Ang Lee and Emma Thompson. the characters were as I pictured them while reading the novel. I find Edward a credible character and the love affair between him and Elinor skilfully and sensitively portrayed. (They make a much more convincing couple than stuttering Hugh Grant and Miss Thompson...) Best of all, the relationship between the two sisters : their tenderness and love in spite of their very different temperaments is convincingly depicted. I just felt the 1995 adaptation missed that aspect which made Elinor hysterics at ill Marianne's bedside all the more absurd and ill-timed. In this miniseries, there are no such hysterical scenes during Marianne's illness, Mrs Jennings is there just as in the book. The dialogues are almost word for word from the novel. The slow pace is suitable because so is the novel. Just one flaw : the end which seems a bit abrupt, as if they were running out of time. A really lovely series.

I love the book, and as much as I do love the 1995 Ang Lee film my favourite version to date is the 2008 version. This 1981 series is very good though, only let down in my opinion by an abrupt ending and Robert Swann's dull Colonel Brandon. However, it is handsomely photographed, and the scenery and costumes look absolutely gorgeous. The music is also effective in its simplicity. The script while not as witty as the Ang Lee film is still literate and true in spirit to Jane Austen's language, and the story while not quite exploring a couple of scenes as well as the 2008 series is still moving and not too rushed or leisurely, in fact it adopts a slow(but never laborious) pace that was perfect considering how the story of the book unfolds. Apart from Swann, I thought the acting was fine. Of the two sisters Mariann and Elinor the Mariann of Tracey Childs I found better. Winslet in the 1995 film is more subtle, but Childs is still quite affecting. Irene Richard is excellent in her scenes between Julia Chambers' Lucy Steele, and is closer than age than Emma Thompson as well as spikier and more confrontational, an approach I liked. Julia Chambers' Lucy is wonderfully catty, Donald Douglas gives a performance of jollity as Sir John, Peter Gale is a sympathetic John Dashwood and Bosco Hogan and Peter Woodward are a dashing Edward and Willoughby respectively. All in all, I liked it very much, though of the three Sense and Sensibility adaptations I've seen thus far it is my least favourite. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Well as a lover of Jane Austen one would be hard pressed to do a reproduction of one of her books and disappoint me. S&S was a pretty well done miniseries, most BBC miniseries are well done. There was a much more book and a more through representation of all the minor characters in this movie than in the 1995 Sense and Sensibility directed by Ang Lee and staring Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson. However the 1981 BBC miniseries was seriously lacking in a couple vital points, the omission of the youngest Dashwood daughter, Margaret and this viewer found the leads of Marranne and Elinor to be so abysmally portrayed I really didn't care a bit about what happened to their characters. These women weren't lovable or very likable. Overall, between to two leads, Tracey Childs as Marriann was the better portrayal. Irene Richard's portrayal of Elinor was so dead pan and empty of any emotion, at all, that much of the movie containing her was difficult to sit through. Over all, for the Austen fan this is a must see movie, but only for the more complete story and representations. Especially the devilishly catty Miss Lucy Steele who in the Ang Lee S&S is very under portrayed.

Having watched the 1995 movie for the first time a few days ago,I decided to watch this fine BBC production again,and found it the more satisfying of the two.

The acting was of a good standard;Tracey Childs splendid as Marianne,and Bosco Hogan's interpretation of Edward Ferrers far exceeded Hugh Grant's peculiar effort in the Ang Lee film.The direction and location filming in Dorset/Somerset and the authentic early 1800's feel more than compensated for the budget constraints.

Also,Willoughby's telling confession to Eleanor as Marianne lay seriously ill upstairs was,thankfully,retained,unlike the 1995 version.

A good miniseries,more Jane Austen than it's "grander" successor!Nine out of ten!