Did you know that Jane Austen published Sense and Sensibility more than 200 years ago? It’s hard to believe but it’s true. And yet people are still falling in love with the wrong person, ignoring excellent advice and refusing to say what they actually mean. So not much has changed.
Focus Features has released the final trailer for a new adaptation of Austen’s novel, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles as sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. The film follows the women after their father’s death leaves the family in financial difficulty. This means that they must Sussex estate, and move into a much smaller home. And to maintain a good social standing, the sisters must enter a world where marriage will determine whether a woman lives comfortably or spends the rest of her life pretending that a cottage is the dream she has lived for.
Elinor is the cautious one. She brings total self-control and the undying belief that feelings should remain private. Marianne responds by experiencing every emotion as though it has arrived on a bus directly from the animation Inside Out. And together, we see two very different ways on how to make romance unnecessarily difficult.
Georgia Oakley directs the film from a screenplay by Diana Reid. Caitríona Balfe, Frank Dillane, George MacKay and Fiona Shaw also appear in the cast. The film opens in US cinemas on 16 October after arriving in the UK in September. Focus Features
Now the obvious question is why we need another adaptation.
Austen’s novel has already reached screens several times, including Ang Lee’s much-loved film starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. That version remains difficult to escape from for very good reasons. I mean, it had the whole shebang. From romance to heartbreak and beautiful landscapes. In this version, Alan Rickman discreetly proved that patience can occasionally be more attractive than dramatic entrances.
A new adaptation therefore cannot simply place attractive people in period clothing, point a camera at an enormous house and assume the job is done.
Although, let’s be honest, that will get you surprisingly far. The final trailer suggests that Oakley’s film understands the humour beneath all the romantic suffering. And maybe they do because one thing is for sure, Austen wrote them with the knowledge of how ridiculous people can become when love, money and reputation enter the same room.
And that’s probably why her stories keep returning.
The rules surrounding romance have changed enormously. Women no longer need to marry a wealthy landowner to avoid being moved into a cottage by an unpleasant relative. We have dating apps now, which allow people to experience rejection much faster and without requiring anybody to travel across the countryside on horseback.
And yet, the emotional confusion remains remarkably familiar.
If the truth be told, we see people every day who still mistake mystery for depth. People who continue to ignore dependable partners while chasing somebody who has mastered the art of appearing interesting in one moment and disappearing in the next. As for families, they still offer opinions that nobody requested on a daily basis. And a perfectly intelligent person can still spend several weeks analysing a conversation that lasted less than three minutes over and over again.
Austen would have understood the group chat.
I think what makes Sense and Sensibility particularly durable is that neither sister has the perfect solution. It is true that Elinor’s restraint protects her dignity. But it also leaves her carrying a huge amount of emotional weight in silence. As for Marianne, her honesty allows her to love without embarrassment, but it also means every disappointment arrives at full volume. So while one feels too little in public, the other feels enough for the entire county.
Most of us probably sit somewhere between them. It all depends on the kind of day we’re having and whether we’ve been blue-ticked without a good reason. The story also understands that romance and money go hand in hand. And as such the reduced circumstances of the Dashwood women limit their choices and change how society treats them. For them, marriage carries emotional importance, but it is also connected to survival, status and the deeply unfair question of who inherited what.
That tension gives the story more weight than a collection of longing looks and damp walks. And you know there will be damp walks. The new film also has to compete with the version viewers have remembered for eons. That can be more intimidating than competing with an actual adaptation. People remember favourite performances, specific lines and exactly how devastated they felt the first time a fictional man behaved badly. Change too much and fans will complain that the filmmakers misunderstood Austen. Change too little and everybody will wonder why they did not simply watch the previous version again.
But each generation brings something different to these characters. Edgar-Jones has already proved that she can make romantic uncertainty feel painfully real, while Creed-Miles appears ready to give Marianne all the emotional restraint of someone throwing open a window during a storm.
That sounds promising.
Sense and Sensibility returns because its central disagreement has never really been settled. Should we protect ourselves by controlling what we feel, or should we leap directly into romance and hope the landing is not humiliating?
Austen gave us two sisters and allowed both of them to discover that the answer lies somewhere in between.
More than two centuries later, the rest of us are still figuring it out.
Watch The Trailer Here:
