Sense and Sensibility

Plot synopsis:
On his deathbed, Mr. Dashwood tells his son from his first marriage, John, to take care of his second wife and three daughters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret, since they will inherit nothing. John's greedy and snobbish wife Fanny convinces him to give his half sisters practically nothing financially; John and Fanny immediately install themselves in the large house, forcing the Dashwood ladies to look for a new home. Fanny invites her brother Edward Ferrars to stay with them. Elinor and Edward soon form a close friendship, but Fanny haughtily tells Mrs. Dashwood that Edward would be disinherited if he married someone of no importance with no money. Mrs. Dashwood understands her meaning completely.
Sir John Middleton, a cousin of the widowed Mrs. Dashwood, offers her a small cottage house on his estate, Barton Park in Devonshire. She and her daughters move in, and are frequent guests at Barton Park. The Dashwoods meet the older Colonel Brandon, who falls in love with Marianne at first sight. However, Marianne considers him an old bachelor, incapable of feeling love or inspiring it in another.
One afternoon, Marianne takes a walk with Margaret and slips and falls in the rain. She is carried home by the dashing John Willoughby, with whom Marianne falls in love. They spend a great deal of time together, but on the morning she expects him to propose marriage to her, he instead leaves hurriedly for London. Unbeknownst to the Dashwood family, Brandon's ward Beth, the illegitimate daughter of his former love Eliza, is pregnant with Willoughby's child. Willoughby's aunt Lady Allen disinherited him upon discovering this.
Sir John's mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings, invites her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, to visit. They bring with them the impoverished Lucy Steele. Lucy confides in Elinor that she and Edward have been engaged secretly for five years, dashing Elinor's hopes of a future with him. Mrs. Jennings takes Lucy, Elinor, and Marianne to London, where they meet Willoughby at a ball. He greets Marianne uncomfortably and barely acknowledges their acquaintance, and they soon learn he is engaged to the extremely wealthy Miss Grey. Marianne becomes inconsolable.
Lucy is invited to stay with John and Fanny, as a way for Fanny to avoid inviting the Dashwood sisters to visit them. Lucy, falsely believing that she has a friend in Fanny, confides her clandestine engagement to Edward and is thrown out of the house. Edward's mother demands that he break off the engagement. When he refuses, she arranges to have his fortune transferred to his younger brother, Robert. On hearing this, Colonel Brandon offers Edward the parish on his estate, feeling sympathy for the unfortunate but honorable Edward.
On their way home to Devonshire, Elinor and Marianne stop for the night at the country estate of the Palmers, who live five and a half miles away from Willoughby's estate. Marianne cannot resist going to see the estate; she becomes gravely ill trekking up a hill in a torrential rain. Colonel Brandon finds her in the rain and brings her home. Elinor stays at her side until she recovers, and the sisters return home. Colonel Brandon and Marianne begin spending time together, as Marianne has a new appreciation for him. She admits to Elinor that even if Willoughby had chosen her, she was no longer convinced that love would have been enough to make him happy.
The Dashwoods soon learn that Miss Steele has become Mrs. Ferrars and assume that she is married to Edward. Later when Edward visits their house, they learn that Miss Steele unexpectedly jilted him in favor of his brother Robert, and Edward is thus released from his engagement. Edward proposes to and marries Elinor. Edward becomes a vicar, under the patronage of Colonel Brandon, whom Marianne marries. Willoughby is seen watching their wedding from a distance, and then rides away.

Tags: romantic

Review:
This 3-hr miniseries seems to me much more faithful to the novel than the 1995 film by Ang Lee and Emma Thompson.
I find Edward a credible character and the love affair between him and Elinor skilfully and sensitively portrayed.
(They make a much more convincing couple than stuttering Hugh Grant and Miss Thompson...) Best of all, the relationship between the two sisters : their tenderness and love in spite of their very different temperaments is convincingly depicted.
I just felt the 1995 adaptation missed that aspect which made Elinor hysterics at ill Marianne's bedside all the more absurd and ill-timed.
In this miniseries, there are no such hysterical scenes during Marianne's illness, Mrs Jennings is there just as in the book.
The advantage this television version has over the later 1995 film version directed by Ang Lee is that due to its length it allows more important scenes to be shown.
This good BBC version keeps in the visit of Edward Ferrers to Barton Cottage and of Willoughby to see Marianne when she is ill.
It is important when doing Jane Austen not to over act, as suppression makes for tension, and in this the actors do a fine job.
The scenes between Elinor Dashwood and Lucy Steele are excellent, seething and polite at the same time.
Julia Chambers as Lucy Steele is excellent and equally as good as Imogen Stubbs in the 1995 film.The male actors are not all bland, Donald Douglas gives a jolly performance and Peter Gale is perfectly unctuous as John Dashwood, but also sympathetic, caught as he is between a domineering wife and mother in law.
Bosco Hogan and Robert Swann are a bit dull however.This is not a sumptuous Hollywood version but fine on its own terms..
Bosco Hogan did a very good job as the self-effacing Edward, and Douglas' portrayal of Sir John Middleton was so lively that as far as the interpretation of this character is concerned, the later S&S actor seems to have borrowed heavily from prior precedent.
This 1981 series is very good though, only let down in my opinion by an abrupt ending and Robert Swann's dull Colonel Brandon.
The script while not as witty as the Ang Lee film is still literate and true in spirit to Jane Austen's language, and the story while not quite exploring a couple of scenes as well as the 2008 series is still moving and not too rushed or leisurely, in fact it adopts a slow(but never laborious) pace that was perfect considering how the story of the book unfolds.
Of the two sisters Mariann and Elinor the Mariann of Tracey Childs I found better.
Irene Richard is excellent in her scenes between Julia Chambers' Lucy Steele, and is closer than age than Emma Thompson as well as spikier and more confrontational, an approach I liked.
Julia Chambers' Lucy is wonderfully catty, Donald Douglas gives a performance of jollity as Sir John, Peter Gale is a sympathetic John Dashwood and Bosco Hogan and Peter Woodward are a dashing Edward and Willoughby respectively.
All in all, I liked it very much, though of the three Sense and Sensibility adaptations I've seen thus far it is my least favourite.
There was a much more book and a more through representation of all the minor characters in this movie than in the 1995 Sense and Sensibility directed by Ang Lee and staring Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson.
However the 1981 BBC miniseries was seriously lacking in a couple vital points, the omission of the youngest Dashwood daughter, Margaret and this viewer found the leads of Marranne and Elinor to be so abysmally portrayed I really didn't care a bit about what happened to their characters.
Over all, for the Austen fan this is a must see movie, but only for the more complete story and representations.
An excellent adaptation of the Austen novel, though the production values can`t compare with the later film.
Having watched the 1995 movie for the first time a few days ago,I decided to watch this fine BBC production again,and found it the more satisfying of the two.The acting was of a good standard;Tracey Childs splendid as Marianne,and Bosco Hogan's interpretation of Edward Ferrers far exceeded Hugh Grant's peculiar effort in the Ang Lee film.The direction and location filming in Dorset/Somerset and the authentic early 1800's feel more than compensated for the budget constraints.Also,Willoughby's telling confession to Eleanor as Marianne lay seriously ill upstairs was,thankfully,retained,unlike the 1995 version.A good miniseries,more Jane Austen than it's "grander" successor!Nine out of ten!.
I really like Jane Austen and normally i like TV-series of her work more then a movie ( i think the 1971 TV-series of Emma is great).
Also there is no chemistry between Elinor and Edward.Irene Richards ( Elinor ) has not done much TV / film work after this series and that should come as no surprise.
I was not very fond of it originally but I found I actually liked it a lot more seeing it again so soon after the 1971 version.
I've been able to watch and enjoy the smaller, TV-mini-series versions of Austen's novels as much (or even more) than their big, film-versions, but this just didn't work.
Although it does follow austen's novel, the camera work is lousey, its as if you are watching a play, close ups are rare and when done, you find yourself half way up the actor's nose.
All in all, this movie is terrible and if you're trying to get a friend to fall in love with Austen DO NOT SHOW THEM THIS!
This movie will make even a hardcore lover of Austen to think twice about her work.
But in her version, Emma Thompson really saw potential in the character of Margaret to add some cute one-liners and bring some comic relief.
She expanded the character rather than deleting it, and it's easy to see which way worked better.There's no comic relief in this version at all.
This focuses too much on the Elinor/Edward factor and doesn't put any real energy in the Marianne/Willoughby/Brandon triangle - a real misfortune because I always found the latter plot line far more interesting.Irene Richard does turn in an acceptable performance as Elinor.
To Childs's defense, let's note that she had the most wooden and irritating actors playing her suitors, while Winslet had the incredibly handsome Alan Rickman and Greg Wise.All in all, this version just falls short in too many ways.
Excellent version of a great novel.
The Dashwood sisters are forced to leave their home because their elder half-brother inherits the estate after their father dies.Elinor Dashwood (played by Irene Richard) represents "sense." She is practical and pragmatic.
Marianne Dashwood (Tracey Childs) represents "sensibility." The meaning of this word has drifted over the years.
In Austen's time its meaning was closer to "sensitivity." Marianne is the romantic sister.
Three were made for television by the BBC, and the fourth was a theatrical film from 1995 directed by Ang Lee, and starring Emma Thompson as Elinor and Kate Winslet as Marianne.We have recently watched all four versions.
What the directors emphasize, and how the actors respond,gives each version different strengths and weaknesses.In my opinion, Irene Richard and Tracey Childs embody the characters that Austen created better than in any other version.
Peter Woodward makes the perfect John Willoughby, the romantic hero with whom Marianne is in love.
To me, this version looked and felt closer to Austen than any of the others.It's not clear to me why other IMDb members didn't appreciate this movie.
I loved it, and I recommend it as the Sense and Sensibility to watch if you're only going to watch one version.
Emma Thompson(Elinor) in the 1995 version scripts herself more time on screen compared to Kate Winslet(Marianne).This version focuses on BOTH of the sisters equally.
This version is far more faithful to the novel than the movie made in 1995.
This version of Austen's novel of love, romance, greed, and jealousy, stars Irene Richard as Elinor and Tracey Childs as Marianne.
It omits completely the youngest sister (which is a shame) but manages to make more of the characters of Edward Ferrars, Willoughby, and Lucy Steele than the more modern feel version written and featuring Emma Thompson a decade later.However, the first two or three episodes are dull rather than diverting, and only when Marianne needs help and a suitor most do things get interesting.
It may not have the high-profile romantic leads that the 1990s version did, but it manages to be touching and effective in the end episode.The episodic nature of this adaptation (7 parts of around 45 minutes each) doesn't really help and it leaves you thinking whether there is really enough to this tale to stretch through many episodes that don't say very much..
The acting is very dull, Marianne is a complete idiot and is very annoying, and Edward Ferrars is almost too awkward to watch.
However, following the piercing, hysterical shrieks of Fanny Dashwood after she is told of Lucy Steele's engagement - which seem to last for several minutes and was very effective in rousing our attention - the story suddenly becomes far more chaotic, but certainly not dull.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the BBC dramatised all Austen's six completed novels.
They reached a high note with Fay Weldon's definitive Pride and Prejudice, which is still the benchmark for screen adaptations of Austen (and far superior to the syrupy 1995 version).
In recent years it has also suffered by comparison with Emma Thompson's masterly movie adaptation.This version has the advantage of an extra hour in which to tell the story.
It can include characters that Thompson had to omit, such as Lucy's silly elder sister and Lady Middleton and her spoilt children and can include scenes that she had to cut (in particular the confrontations between Elinore and Lady Ferrars and Elinore and Willoughby).
Similarly, Thompson's Elinore and Rickman's Colonel Brandon are a dozen years older than Austen's characters.
Overall, it feels like a more faithful adaptation of the book.However, this is not necessarily important.
Because Emma Thompson knew she was going to have to condense the story she had to think much more carefully about what she wanted to get from the book.
She dramatises the process of Elinore and Edward falling in love (Austen simply tells us this has happened in the prologue).
In the book, Marianne and Willoughby fare better, but her eventual husband, Colonel Brandon, also disappears for long stretches and there is relatively little interplay between the two rivals.
Emma Thompson realised that the key relationship is actually that between the sisters and that is what she puts at the heart of the story.
Irene Richards (who was a superb Charlotte Lucas in P & P) plays Elinore as somewhat more spiky and confrontational than did Emma Thompson.
Tracy Childs is a good Marianne, but perhaps too much of a spoilt brat at times.
I have a lot of time for Bosco Hogan's Edward and Peter Woodward's Willoughby.
This is a question of fudging simple plot points, but far more inexplicable is the fact that when Willoughby turns up in the middle of the night to see Marianne he is apparently unaware that she is ill - that was the reason he came!Although I think this is probably the most disappointing of the six BBC Austens (Northanger Abbey is less satisfactory but more inventive), it is still a decent enough production and I am glad to have it in my collection.
I would recommend it to anyone that wants a more complete version of the book than Thompson and Ang Lee were able to give us.
The major strength of this production as compared to the 1995 version is the character of Marianne, which in turn changes and deepens the relationship of the two sisters, Marianne and Elinor.
Here, Marianne declines an improper gift from Willoughby (a horse) after Elinor explains its impropriety (this incident is not in the 1995 version), and overall, she does not let the fact that she is more passionate than Elinor lead her to be dismissive of Elinor.
Thus it is possible to see why these two might be close, even before Marianne discovers how much emotion Elinor has in fact been feeling since learning of Edward Ferrars' secret engagement.
And later, when their greedy brother asks them to cut-off all relations with Edward Ferrars (a scene not in the 1995 version), and Elinor springs up and refuses, Marianne also springs up and says "bravo" and then the two sisters walk out arm-in-arm.
I liked the portrayal of the Marianne character better in this version than in the 1995.
However, I have a particular fondness for the actress here who plays Elinor, Irene Richard, because she also plays Charlotte Lucas in the 1985 BBC Pride and Prejudice, one of my great favorite productions that I have seen many times.
While good sense is a hallmark of both characters, she portrays them differently; it is impossible to imagine her Elinor Dashwood marrying a buffoon as did her Charlotte Lucas marry Mr. Collins in P&P, or defer to such a one as Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
I particularly liked her in a scene not in the 1995 version, where Willoughby comes to the Palmer's house in the night, drunk and wanting to see Marianne (not knowing she is very ill) and Elinor treats him with the blunt coldness he so richly deserves.
An enjoyable faithful version that most Austen Fans would savor..
The exclusion of the youngest sister only bothered me for a bit and then I forgot about it.At one point Tracey Childs, as Marianne was supposed to be ill and characters kept commenting on her thinness.
Also I was often distracted by Irene Richard's (Elinor)makeup.She often looked like she was wearing a milk mustache and I kept wanting to fix her lipstick!!
Peter Woodward was a particularly attractive Willoghby and it was very believable that he would appeal to Marianne.However,Robert Swann as Colonel Brandon was also very attractive,more so than the book indicated.
I would recommend this to anyone who will watch anything Austen and those who enjoy older BBC productions..
I was looking forward to seeing another version of this, having just read the book again.
Overall, the acting seemed to me to be pale and rather lifeless, as though many characters simply read their lines with little true feeling at all.
The addition of Lucy Steele's older sister and Lady Middleton added nothing--in the book they were amusing in their way, but here, no; Miss Steele's goofiness was not really shown, which would be the only reason to include her.
Half the time Eleanor was dressed in the dull colors of a nun, and even many of Mary Ann's dresses looked ill-fitted and sloppily made, like something in a high school play!
Though Lucy was catty in her way, she lacked the force of character of the conniving bitch she was in the book--she was MUCH more interestingly played in Ang Lee's film!
OH so much more convincing than anything in this film's version of Brandon!As for the general direction, it was rather dull--at least in Ang Lee's film they did something besides sit around and sew!
Ang Lee's version, for all it's faults, has far better acting, a more lively cast, more interesting interplay between the characters, far better costumes, and honestly....I may have to watch it yet again, just to get the bland taste of this one out of my mind!.
I enjoyed the fact that many good moments of the novel are presented in this TV version that you cannot see in the movie, for lack of time.
For example, the scene at Mrs Ferrars' little party, which shows the Steeles trying to make themselves liked by the lady, or when Willoughby comes back for an explanation.
Whereas I can truly believe in Elinor's love for Edward in the 1995 movie version with Emma Thompson, while believing at the same time in the utmost importance of her attempts at keeping her true feelings secret, in this case, I thought Irene Richard was absolutely not able to convey neither one of these feelings.
Tracey Child in the role of Marianne has moments that are OK, but she overplays terribly most of the time, especially during her illness.
One of the actors I enjoyed more was Colonel Brandon, who was not hamming it up, and would let his love for Marianne shine through his facial expressions, his tone of voice.
The best scene with him is when he starts talking about poetry with Marianne, and she starts seeing him in a new light; you don't see this change of heart as much in the 1995 movie version.
Anyway, for a true Jane Austen lover, this version of Sense and Sensibility might be interesting for curiosity value and for the fact that it portrays a few scenes that you don't see elsewhere, but other than that, it's really not great at all..
I don't think this is the worst movie ever made by any means but I did not like it at all.
Sure, it tells the story well enough, but the acting really is atrocious.The Dashwood Ladies (the mom and Mrs. John Dashwood included) all did a decent job, as well as Edward, Willowby, and Colonel Brandon.
I would think, if your sister has fainted, you would feel like maybe you should move a little quicker.
Mrs. Jennings had good moments but I was totally thrown off by her closeup after Elinor tells her off; and she never came back from that for me.Basically, I would say go with the 1995 version, there is excellent acting, better looking people, better cinematography (it isn't really the movie's fault that it's so bad in that department since it was in 1981), the stuff that needs to be in there is, and they don't add anything too Hollywood to it.