*****
Did this happen in the book?
Daisy Edgar Jones is excellent as Elinor Dashwood, the lead part in Georgia Oakley’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s early novel Sense and Sensibility. The plot focuses on the Dashwood family, and on two sisters in particular: the sensible, discreet and reserved Elinor, and her more open-hearted, passionate, spontaneous sister Marianne. The tension arising from these two characteristics is evident in several other episodes in Austen’s small literary output. The display of feelings versus self-control. Openness, sincerity, sense and sensibility.
Darkness is a feature of this production. Dimly-lit interiors rely on thin supplies of natural light from inadequate windows. Brooding men taciturnly evade questions about their tangled histories. The audience peers through the gloom, catching a moment of light here, a hint of truth there. It is so very well done.
The plight of unmarried young women of no large fortune, faced with the disadvantages imposed upon them by misogynistic inheritance laws, is the central focus of this story. The need to marry a wealthy man is of paramount concern throughout Austen’s work. If he is handsome, all the better. If he is morally upright.. bingo. But Sense and Sensibility was Austen’s first venture into the world of authorship, so in this case, her heroine Elinor makes do with two of these advantages; her beau’s future occupation, as local vicar, would suffice for now, though later novels would aim significantly higher in financial terms, and would relegate her clerical characters to shallow objects worthy only of biting mockery.
Mrs Jennings (Fiona Shaw) and Marianne (Esmé Creed Miles) are the brash, heart-on-sleeve types, at odds with most of the other characters in the narrative. Such unguarded sincerity leaves the young open to harm, Miss Austen maintained. Marianne, inevitably, is badly hurt; but so too is the stoical, wise Elinor. It’s being female that is the problem, in a world of caddish men who commit themselves covertly to others – or not.
Sense and Sensibility is a great plot, embroidered with subtle twists and and neat surprises, a tale that Charles Dickens would have been proud of thirty years later. And Dickens would surely have enjoyed the melodramatic duel as the climax of the piece. It was an incident that Austen treated with Elinor-like discretion and reserve, mentioned obliquely, almost unwritten; but this is 2026, and Georgia Oakley could not resist the temptation to have a troupe of aghast, admiring women gawping from a boudoir window at the shoot-out on the frost-packed gardens. Regency England goes Once Upon a Time in the West. Willoughby and Colonel Brandon channel Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson. Briefly.
Austen devotees might be scratching their heads wondering whether this really happened in the book. They might also wonder at the dances earlier in the film – some of which were boisterous beyond measure, and one of which, involving Elinor and Edward , was erotic beyond…well, just beyond erotic.
Adaptations deserve licence, and Oakley has played a blinder on this one. She has the tone and the feel of Austenland just right, thanks also to some excellent casting choices, terrific cast performances, inspired location decisions and judicious editing.
One additional feature deserves special mention. Roger Goula’s score, with a hint of baroque and a decent dose of Phillip Glass minimalism, is perfectly pitched.
