This has to be the standard version by which all other versions of Sense and Sensibility are judged. All the main characters do such an amazing job. It's no surprise to me that Kate Winslet gives such an amazing performance as Marianne, but what about Hugh Grant as Edward? (I just love the way he stands and walks and hold his head as Edward.)
Let's be honest: The men are all secondary characters, but everything depends on them, in a way, and all of them seem to be impotent. They want love and romance as much as the women, but they are also more beholden to the wishes of their family -- assuming their family has money and the power to cut off their inheritance.
That's not quite fair, because I'm sure rich women want love, too, but at least in this Austen adaptation if not the others, the focus is on the women from more modest means, and the roadblocks they face trying to secure the love of the men they want to marry, men who just happen to be "above the economic station of the women."
The story begins when the son inherits his father's estate. This leaves his stepmom and three half-sisters on their own. To be fair -- and the movie doesn't highlight or clarify this at all -- the second wife had about 10,000 pounds of her own. We see that her stepson John (James Fleet) wants to keep his promise to his dying father. His plan is to give his stepmom 3000 pounds. Well, he's talked out of being generous, but even if he gave them nothing, and I have no idea how much it would cost to rent a cottage in 19th century England, isn't 10,000 pounds not enough to make it on? (Checking the inflation calculator, I found that this is worth the equivalent of over a $1,000,000 today. So while I guess that wouldn't make them rich, could they afford to live until at least the daughters found husbands?)
Anyway, this is a romance, and the people who should end up together at the end, do. Actually, I'm not sure who John Willoughby (James Fleet) should end up with. The soap opera part of the story is that he ended up getting Col. Brandon's (Alan Rickman) ward pregnant. Was this during or just before the interval that he was seeing Marianne? The movie doesn't make it overly clear. Col. Brandon contends that John was "honorable" in his intentions to Marianne and would have married her; however, if he was "honorable" to her while also getting this other girl pregnant, how honorable is that?
Character ages and actor ages don't match up -- a minor pet peeve of mine, but something not uncommon in movies. Elinor (Emma Thompson) should be 19, but she's being played by a woman in her mid-30s. Does she pass for 19? Hardly, but then again, Edward should be in his early 20s, and Hugh Grant is also in his mid-30s. Rickman is in his late 40s playing a man in his mid-30s, in love with Marianne, a girl of 16, being played by Winslet, who was 20... Of all the age differences between characters and actors, I guess the one that bothers me the most is Emma Thompson, and yet, she's very good in the part. Just too old.
Other than that, if I wanted to get down on the movie at all, I guess the ending "goes silent." That is, we see the double wedding, but no one speaks and we receive no explanation or commentary. It's not 100% clear that both couples are getting married at the same time, or at least you recognize that they did, but you don't get to see the double-ceremony and how that was arranged in the church, and then the very end focuses mainly on one couple -- the couple that gets to enter the carriage, and Col. Rickman throwing coins to the crowd... And after that, you get a shot of John on his horse, probably miles away at his estate, apparently looking on at the wedding from that great distance. Does that mean he does, in fact, love Marianne, and regrets the circumstances that ultimately kept them apart. (For that matter, does Marianne accept that Col. Brandon was her "true love" because his love for her was always, like the Shakespeare sonnet says, constant? Sure, he always loved her, but we never hear her explain why she now accepts his love. Col. Brandon still somehow comes off as consolation prize...)
Mark Twain famously hated Jane Austen novels, and maybe if I read the novels, I would hate them, too, but to be fair, I at least love this film. And overall, I have a feeling that there are many more better Austen film adaptations than there are Twain film adaptations. Why is that? Will Austen long live on well after people forget about Twain for anything more than his persona?
Rating: 5/5 stars
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