A new Sense and Sensibility, too

It’s a year of Jane Austen, as Dolly Alderton’s series adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is due on Netflix later this year, and now we have a trailer for a new feature film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, too. The new Sens and Sens—is that anything?—comes from Georgia Oakley, whose debut feature film, Blue Jean, about lesbian teachers in 1980s England, won the People’s Choice Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2022. The new film stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor Dashwood and George MacKay as Edward Ferrars.

For many of us, Ang Lee’s 1995 film starring Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, and Alan Rickman is the gold standard of Jane Austen film adaptations, but as I said with Pride and Prejudice, every generation gets their version of this story. It’s time for a younger generation to put their spin on Sense and Sensibility, just as they are with Pride and Prejudice. And hey, it looks good!

I do love that a two-and-a-half-minute trailer is really leaning into how much Fanny Dashwood sucks, talking her husband into disenfranchising his half-sisters when their father dies. Fanny Dashwood SUCKS, and John Dashwood isn’t any better. I like how unpleasant and sh-tty they seem. Let’s not mince our visual language! These people are straight villains! Make them look as bad as a classy Austen joint can!

I am also deeply amused that part of reimagining Sense and Sensibility for a new generation is doing away with the Colonel Brandon/Marianne Dashwood age gap. In the book, they’re just shy of 20 years apart. Questionable now, sure, but let’s not rewrite history and pretend like Austen’s contemporary audience would have blinked at that, because they would not have. Brandon and Marianne are a “good match” in Austen’s world (not least because Brandon has the means to bail the entire Dashwood family out of poverty). In Ang Lee’s film, Alan Rickman, then 49, starred as Brandon opposite Kate Winslet, then 19, as Marianne—an even bigger gap than in the book.

Now, though, Marianne is played by Esmé Creed-Miles, 26, with Norwegian actor Herbert Nordrum—whom you might remember from The Worst Person in the World— playing Brandon at age 38. We have narrowed the gap dramatically! Perhaps, they’ll age up Brandon and age down Marianne, who is supposed to be around 16/17, her youthful foolishness is a big part of her character arc, or maybe they just won’t mention it all. I’m very curious, because younger generations have no tolerance for an age gap, which is built into many of Austen’s works. That’ll be a fun discourse to watch unfold, unless the film sidesteps it entirely.

On the other couple front, Daisy Edgar-Jones and George MacKay look like a solid match as Elinor and Edward, as they both have iPhone face. I mean, everyone in this trailer has iPhone face. These are all people who know what a gluten-free diet is. I think I might be over punishing historical films for this, though, when our entire society right now is built on everyone getting the same tweakments to have the same vaguely similar facial features. Everyone has iPhone face, what are casting directors supposed to do about it? We need a society-wide shift to combat it.  

Finally, there is something about Catriona Balfe going from playing the romantic lead in Outlander to playing the widowed mother in Sense and Sensibility at the ripe age of 46 that kind of bums me out. It’s actually age appropriate for the era, but in terms of casting, it’s like, welp, she hit the 40-something wall where the roles flip from steamy to mommy, even though, in this case, Mrs. Dashwood being her 40s makes sense. I’ve always wanted to see a Pride and Prejudice that casts a dishy Mrs. Bennet, because she’s supposed to be a great beauty, but I will settle for a dishy Mrs. Dashwood. Don’t tell me that Mrs. D couldn’t pull some quality Georgian D of her own!