SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1995 Ben Hoffman
On first hearing about SENSES AND SENSIBILITY, written by Jane Austen 200 years ago, (her first novel), the screenplay by Emma Thompson (her first screenplay) and directed by the Taiwanese Ang Lee (THE WEDDING BANQUET, EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN), one could not help but wonder what the film might turn out to be. Put away your fears. The combination, along with some fine acting, has emerged as probably the best film of the year.
Lots of things have changed in 200 years. They had no cars, no TV, etc., and their lifestyles were very much different than is ours today. But emotions have not had a metamorphosis. Then, as now, there were good people and bad, the selfish and the generous, and through it all was "love" and desire and decorum.
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY is essentially about two sisters and the men they desired and those who wanted the sisters to be their wife. That was not as easy as it sounds. Money and station in life are here looked upon very carefully by both the sisters, the men, the parents.
All of this is carefully laid out in a complex but orderly fashion. Thompson wisely stuck as closely to Austen's book as film- making would allow and, with a fine director, we have a masterpiece.
Very briefly, the story is that the law in England at that time said that the estate of the father went to his son. When the father, Henry Dashwood, (Tom Wilkinson) was dying he told his son by his first wife. John (James Fleet), how he wanted the estate handled. The elder Dashwood had been married before. By his second wife, (Gemma Jones), he had three daughters. From John, he extracted the promise that the widow and her three daughters would be well taken care of but it was not long before John's wife, Fanny (Harriet Walter) began, after the death of her father-in-law, to minimize the amount John had been intending to give the widow and daughters, and helped to make their life miserable.
At the first opportunity, the widow and her children, with little money of their own, moved away but before that happened, the eldest daughter, Elinor, (Emma Thompson) had fallen in love with Fanny's brother, Edward (Hugh Grant). While it seemed as if they were engaged, when Elinor moved with her mother and sisters, the expected visits from Edward did not occur. Elinor was hurt but took things as well as she could. The film's other love story is that of the younger sister, Marianne (Kate Winslett) and the several men who fell in love with her.
Faithful to the period in every respect, the movie depicts the lives, the yearnings of the people involved. How far does one go in declaring one's love? Is a man 35-years-old too decrepit to marry a 27-year-old? Is a woman in her late twenties "over the hill?" These and many other questions are encountered and resolved in a most proficient manner, aided by such fine actors as Alan Rickman, Robert Hardy, Elizabeth Spriggs, and Emile Franois and others. All have important roles and all do well by them.
This is a film you absolutely must see.
4 Bytes
4 Bytes = Superb
3 Bytes = Too good to be missed.
2 Bytes = So so.
1 Byte = Save your money.
-- Ben Hoffman
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