Sense and Sensibility Review: Georgia Oakley Brings Keen Eye to Jane Austen Adaptation

It’s always tempting to discuss Jane Austen adaptations in comparison with their predecessors, especially when the most famous example here is Ang Lee’s version that earned Emma Thompson her second Oscar. Georgia Oakley recognizes this; rather than trying to reinvent the wheel or subvert this text, she instead delivers a sublime take that more than justifies returning to the well once more. For as much as we desire original stories, there’s just as much pleasure to be taken from a solid translation of sturdy material. And it confirms the Blue Jean director as a major talent—a great eye who can put a definite stamp on outside sources without going overboard.

Very little time is wasted on setup: the credits play over images of a girl lounging in a field; we then learn that the Dashwood patriarch has died and his wife and daughters are in danger of losing their house (and their place in the upper class) to his son John and his wife Fanny (Stacey Martin), unless either eldest stepdaughter Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones) or middle child Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles) gets hitched to someone of means. The former, more reserved, starts up a tentative… something with Fanny’s brother Edward Ferrars (George MacKay) while the latter, prone to feeling her feelings, quite literally falls for John Willoughby (Frank Dillane). An older, aloof family friend named Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum) hovering in the background suggests a more unexpected path for her.

There are no particular surprises for where this turns. Even if it’s your first time engaging with any version of her story, Austen created such a sturdy romantic structure that it’s easy to get a tad annoyed towards the end as it springs for the fakeout. Luckily, she was also a writer of wit, and this iteration embodies that in spades. Edgar-Jones and Creed-Miles are perfectly matched as sisters, balancing classic sibling antagonism with true, heartfelt devotion. Caitríona Balfe does pleasant business as the matriarch who simply wants the best for her daughters (though she clearly would prefer they get married soon), often utilizing the dry wit so associated with Austen, while Bodhi Rae Breathnach rounds out the family as youngest daughter Margaret and gets a lot of laughs. Fiona Shaw, meanwhile, has a good intro as the boorish Mrs. Jennings, but rapidly overstays her welcome (though not quite enough to throw off proceedings). The men all acquit themselves rather well. MacKay, with a face and presence built for a period piece, makes a particularly dashing hero; Dillane gets a chance to show off a warmer register as well as a variation of the toxic man he played in Urchin; and Nordrum pulls off a pretty good English accent, though one feels he doesn’t quite get the chance to burrow as deep just by the nature of his character.

The real star is Oakley’s direction. She possesses a fantastic eye, aided by Arnaud Potier’s lush cinematography, that surely ranks with the year’s best. At times it adopts the roving, handheld Malickian style (complete with voiceover!) and does so far better than Hamnet ever achieved with all the time it spent in the natural world. When indoors, she favors mirrors while characters are in conversation, subtly shifting focus between speakers at a dinner. It’s only a little showy, but demonstrates someone with a command of craft getting the chance to stretch herself—perhaps best seen in the way she captures bodies moving during dance sequences that simply look so pleasing.

Much like Blue Jean, this is also, in the end, a story about repression and a woman’s place in the world, themes that are drawn out deftly and subtly during a brisk runtime. For the Dashwoods—moved as they are from a rather nice middle-class house to a shabby cottage—marriage is survival, as it is for basically every woman in the period; they must suss out the whims of the men who come courting them not just for love, but whether they can actually be counted on to be honest with their intentions. In the end, this is a movie about feelings needing to be expressed, and Oakley translates them to the viewer with aplomb. Maybe it won’t supplant your favorite version, but it’s an entertaining, well-crafted take that more than stands on its own, as much a springboard for those involved as it is a delight to watch.

Sense and Sensibility opens on Friday, October 16.