Review: "Sense and Sensibility"
Jane Austen’s 1811 romantic novel has become a popular and enduring story over the years.
Prior to the current 2026 movie version, it was adapted as a feature film in 1995, 2023 and 2025 (titled Sense & Sensibility: A Modern Retelling). It was a TV miniseries in 1971, 1981 and 2008, as well as a TV movie in 2024.
It would seem that audiences just can’t get enough of this story.
This latest version was part of a Monday Night Mystery Movie night offered by my local Cinemark Theatre.
Aware of the feeding frenzy about this story in recent years, I really didn’t know what to expect. It seemed to be teetering on what might be considered Jane Austen overkill.
Remarkably, I was genuinely impressed with director Georgia Oakley’s take on this familiar tale of love, loss, sisterhood, passion and betrayal. From the start, it appealed to me purely on the basis of its artistry and beauty. Great cinematography is a big component of great movies from my perspective, and the opening scenes quickly established a level of mastery I rarely see these days with the possible exception of some foreign films.
This telling of Sense and Sensibility is bathed in beautiful natural, subtle, muted colors. There is a sense of authenticity and realism, transporting the audience back in time, with great attention to the smallest details.
Oakley’s vision includes attention to nature, the grassy fields, the lush landscapes and the ever-changing weather. The film has a rare atmospheric quality. You can almost breathe the air. It trades the gloss and glamor of Downton Abbey for a simplified, striped-down recreation of life as it existed two centuries ago.
The casting also goes all-out for realism featuring charming, attractive characters who look and act like average, ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. It’s the antithesis of Margot Robbie’s casting in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights earlier this year, where even her toned-down beauty seemed out of place.
Sense and Sensibility features a great ensemble cast, including Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor Dashwood, Esmé Creed-Miles as Marianne Dashwood and Bodhi Rae Breathnach (who gained so much attention as the freckle-faced Susanna in last year’s Hamnet) as Margaret Dashwood.
It’s interesting that the story seems so out of touch with modern sensibility in its depiction of women as helpless pawns in a largely male-dominated world. A friend of mine commented “Gloria Steinem must be rolling in her grave.”
Granted, the story plays like an elaborate soap opera that seems so out of touch with current times. One has to be reminded that it was written over two hundred years ago when the world was a different place in so many ways. You could argue that the social obstacles and barriers of the past are the main source of psychological drama in Sense and Sensibility. They run counter to the norms and dynamics of this day and age.
The plight of the widowed mother and orphaned daughters struggling to find supportive husbands is apparently still a powerful, emotional theme. Hollywood can’t seem to resist remaking and retelling it. It’s the thread that ties all the movie and TV adaptions together and perhaps explains their enduring popularity.
What sets this version apart is its stunningly beautiful presentation. Almost every frame of the film is like a painting. In some ways it reminded me of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece Barry Lyndon (1975) -- an acclaimed literary work brought to vivid life through Kubrick’s visionary genius and talent.
As with Barry Lyndon, the images are everything here. You could argue they eclipse the story, as timeless as it is. It’s a movie that can be enjoyed for its style and splendor.
If you love beautiful movies, Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility is one is worth seeing.
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