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Sense and Sensibility Movie Review

Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 period drama film directed by Ang Lee and starring Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant. It’s passable.

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“She’ll be wet through when she returns.

Thank you for pointing that out, my dear“

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After the death of their father, three young girls find themselves in abject poverty. The responsibility to provide for the family lands on the oldest sisters, who are also dealing with heartbreaks. Based on the famous Jane Austin novel, this movie was the one responsible the most for the renewed interest in her books as well as a growing number of cinematic and televised adaptations from the nineties onward.

I am not a fan myself. I love Ang Lee, but I have never gotten the appeal of Jane Austin as I find her stories very soapy and strictly for female audiences as it lacks the appeal for men altogether. I did appreciate that Lee wanted to do something different with his career back in 1995 and he did execute the movie technically very strongly, but still it’s one of his weaker films.

Let’s talk about the characters. I found all of them rather weak. The male ones are particularly forgettable and slight in characterization. Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman did the best that they could with their mediocre roles, but this is a woman picture, so obviously the men are going to be sidelined.

The women fare much better, but still with some caveats. Kate Winslet is excellent in one of her earliest breakout roles while Emma Thompson is obviously the main standout of the picture as her acting is as amazing as always. However, both of these women, especially Thompson’s character, felt very oddly utilized. On the one hand, the movie felt somewhat modernized in its direction, but on the other hand, their obsession with men and marriage made it very quaint and outdated. The mixture of the two approaches was very unevenly executed.

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Sense and Sensibility looks incredible as the cinematography, the costumes and especially the sets are gorgeous and sumptuous. The direction is solid and the dialogue is excellent, but the pacing is terrible as the movie is overlong and dragging more often than not. Overall, it did deserve the acting and technical nods, but others were underserved.