Review of Sense and Sensibility, dvd.
Director: Ang Lee
Original novel: Jane Austen
Screen Play: Emma Thompson
Release Date: 13 December 1995
Emma Thompson - Elinor Dashwood
Kate Winslet – Marianne Dashwood
Alan Rickman - Col. Christopher Brandon
Hugh Grant - Edward Ferrars
I do recommend the adaptation with some reservations. The film is too dark in the first half and the decision to cut the Willoughby/Elinor scene where he attempts to explain his behavior leaves unexplainable Elinor's sense/sensibility quandary. The addition of the double marriage is Hollywood not Austen but coming at the end is not jarring. The adaptation may be viewed as interest in the work of Ang Lee, as of a visualization of Sense Sensibility but in the end it is not of the rank of Wright's (2005) Pride and Prejudice.
The acting, generally is good, excellent of Thompson in the role of Elinor Dashwood. The costuming, in-house and countryside scenery is very well chosen and photographed. The lighting of the film, is problematic. While the atmospheric shots are subdued, could be characterized as gloomy, they are appropriate to the sense of loss that Austen created in the novel. The interior shots, using candlelight, are too dark, as it is sometimes difficult to read facial expressions. In the second half, Ang Lee happily uses sunshine as emphasis to the romantic resolutions.
Sense and Sensibility is the most didactic of Austen novels and the screen play is reasonably faithful to the novel. Preserving the romantic view of nature, of poetry, of first love, as attributes of unchecked sensibility however by cutting the lurid Willoughby/Elinor scene, it makes incomprehensible the resolution between sense and sensibility. Perhaps not a great loss as it would have made the theme even more incomprehensible, I would definitely advise to read the book before viewing the film.
It will be interesting to compare this adaptation to the John Alexander's version due in March 2007.
