Sense & Sensibility

Truth is, my wife is (was) the family's one Jane Austen addict so I had zero inkling up-front of the two truly extraordinary story arcs. To say that this production is one wild, nail-biting roller-coaster ride is putting it pretty mildly.

To follow Hattie Morahan's warm, kind, brave and hypnotically beautiful Elinor through to her dismal and heart-breaking dead-end in life, via a seeming never-ending series of emotional whacks... that's story-telling of the most profoundest kind.

And then into that truly stunning few moments where eyes are absolutely GLUED to Elinor's quivering back... that's movie-making beyond awesome.

I've dutifully watched the movie version too now. These REALLY go well together. The movie is intensely beautiful to look at and has great crowd scenes. Highly worth watching for the alternative take on the Marianne story; I liked it without necessarily preferring it. Each version has some dialog that greatly helps understand points in the other.

No review I've read yet has mentioned the great voice-over commentary on the DVD. Director, producer and four leads. Nice happy family that one is. Hattie Morahan is self-effacing almost to the point of invisibility, but she has a truly great laugh we hear often. Remarks by "Edward" and "Marianne" and "Willoughby" are warm, funny and at times really insightful, and leave one liking each of them a lot.

Plus we hear just how the director and producer arrived at many of their outcomes, adjusted things post-production, set up the scenes in the many houses and the studios, struggled for continuity, and came up with that proposal scene - told in that self-effacing and often funny British way, but they're true talents.

And Janeites, please get this: the team makes it increasingly clear that there are several hours of unused scenes still in the can. They are not offered here on this DVD. So, a 4-or-5-hour director's-cut version? Okay. You know what to do...

This is a good new version. I'm surprised it was made, since the one with Emma Thompson is still quite fresh in people's minds.

However, I think that this one has some better characterisations. Both versions had good Mariannes, but this one is hard to beat. Hatty M. plays Elinor with all the right emotions, but I'm not always sure she is quite in period.

This could partly be Andrew Davies' fault, as he is responsible for some dialogue that surely would never have come from the pen of Jane Austen.

David Morrissey is excellent as usual, as is Dan Stevens (who has the great advantage, in my book, that he is not Hugh Grant. I think he would have been good as Willoughby, who should surely be more handsome than Edward). Dominic Cooper is not good as Willoughby. His looks are wrong, his speech tends towards Estuary English in places and in others he does not speak clearly. I could go on.

Lucy Steele's sister does something close to an impression of Alice in The Vicar of Dibley. Why does she have a non-standard accent, whereas her genteel sister does not?

I should also mention that the settings and overall look of the production were first rate.

I totally disagree with all the negative comments about this film. I mean, it was a little rushed at times, especially at the end. However, all in all it was a great film to watch and you did not feel in any way that Elinor and Marrianne married the wrong men! In the Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant version, I think you get the impression that Elinor should marry Col. Brandon!

The acting was of the high quality you expect from any BBC production and the music was absolutely fantastic. The editing was a little patchy at times, but otherwise sound.

I would absolutely recommend this version to any true Jane Austen fan, it does not disappoint, in fact it leaves you with that same warm fuzzy feeling that each novel and most of the film adaptations always do!

Happy Watching!

Praising the BBC for the quality of their costume dramas may be the equivalent of taking coals to Newcastle but in some respects it's what they do best and "Sense and Sensibility" is no exception. Of course, comparisons with Ang Lee's splendid film version are inevitable yet somehow the intimacy of television and the somewhat greater length that a serialized adaptation can afford gives this a deeper dimension that the albeit very entertaining film version.

The writer is Andrew Davies who is a dab hand at this sort of thing and the casting is, as ever, impeccable. Perhaps the best actors working anywhere in the world today are on British television, (note the recent adaptation of "Cranford"). The performances here are superb. Both Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield succeed in banishing all thoughts of Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, (no mean feat), while David Morrissey as Colonel Brandon and Dan Stevens as Edward Ferrars are outstanding, acting rings round Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant who played the same roles in the movie. Morrissey, in particular, is one of the best actors on television, perhaps anywhere, and it is always a pleasure to see him. But then the whole cast are terrific as is the assured direction of John Alexander. Just perfect for a Sunday night in front of the fire.

Perhaps we are getting used to Andrew Davies's adaptations but I think he was below par here, perhaps because of the short duration. This version had what are known as "high production values", ie it looked good and was well-acted. However Jane Austen's dialogue and characterisation really lost out when compressed into three episodes. Andrew Davies would rightly say that 21st century television is a very different medium from an early nineteenth century novel. In its own terms, therefore, as a TV drama it was quite good, as bonnet-fests go. However if you had never read the book, you would have probably thought that much fuss has been made over a fairly uninteresting story. I guess you could compress Sense & Sensibility still further until people would believe that Jane Austen was first published by Mills and Boon.

On the plus side at least they got the characters' ages right. In the 1995 version Emma Thompson was 36 but playing a nineteen year old. However good she was, she was far too old for the part.