Sense and Sensibility (2008) Movie Review

Read my reviews of the 1971, 1981, and 1995 Sense and Sensibilitys here, here, and here respectively.

In the interest of being upfront, I may as well tell you right away that this review is not likely to be completely unbiased. I am fond of the 2008 Sense and Sensibility. Exceedingly fond, you might even say. I shall strive to maintain at least a modicum of objectivity in this review; since this version isn’t completely perfect, I shall point out some of its issues. I just feel it only fair to warn you that I love it dearly despite those issues. : )

Let us start with Elinor.

Hattie Morahan’s Elinor is more outgoing and more outwardly cheerful than Emma Thompson’s. Emma Thompson’s Elinor is more what I pictured from the book, but I still think it’s rather a good thing that they changed it. Don’t want to look like you’re plagiarizing. (There are certain scenes that do look just a bit like they were plagiarized, but what else can you expect from Andrew Davies? This is the man who mocked the musical of Les Misérables.) That being said, I very much like Hattie Morahan’s Elinor too. And though Ms. Morahan wasn’t nineteen, she does look much younger than Emma Thompson did – young enough that her age doesn’t bother me.

I know a lot of people don’t like Charity Wakefield’s Marianne. I do, though. She might seem a little too teenager-ish, but Marianne was just a dramatic teenager, when all’s said and done. She still seemed like a warm, kind person – truth be told, I think Charity Wakefield is too nice as Marianne, if anything. She isn’t quite selfish or annoying enough.

I really like Janet McTeer’s Mrs. Dashwood. She isn’t quite Marianne-ish enough – for instance, she is puzzled and unsettled by Willoughby’s not speaking about any understanding with Marianne, instead of just brushing it off like she did in the book – and she has more mastery over her emotions than Mrs. Dashwood should. She is still less sensible than Elinor, though. I admit that I very much like her portrayal despite its differences from the book.

And this version has my favorite Margaret. She’s there, for one (a good start), and she’s more like the book-Margaret than Emilie Francois, while still having her own personality. And she’s just cute.

As for Dan Stevens’ Edward…well, all right, let’s just admit that he’s much more friendly and charming than book-Edward is meant to be. It’s just a fact. I think he still comes across as being a fairly quiet, peace-loving person, though, which is as it should be. And I still really really like his Edward, even though it’s a bit different from the book.

…I know. I know I keep saying that. Sorry. (I just said “a modicum of objectivity,” after all. I didn’t say completely objective.)

Now, for someone I don’t have to make such excuses for…

David Morrissey is excellent as Colonel Brandon. Yes, he also is older than Colonel Brandon should be, but he doesn’t look as old as Alan Rickman, and the age gap between him and Ms. Wakefield is exactly right. He comes across as this strong, tender, sweet presence in a way which is exactly right for the character. Colonel Brandon is my favorite Austen hero, and I think David Morrissey does a fabulous job of portraying him.

I have issues with this Willoughby. (Well, I always have issues with Willoughby, as he’s an issue-laden person, but in this version I had the wrong issues.) I think they wanted to let the audience know he was a villain from the beginning, but the trouble is that that made him come across as creepy and un-charming, which is the opposite of what Willoughby should be. I wonder if the film-makers felt that too many people wished Marianne had ended up with Willoughby in the ’95 version (a very silly thing to wish, but I have seen one or two people say that they would have preferred that) and wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again.

Some have said rather harsh things about Dominic Cooper’s appearance, but I think with different scripting of his character he might have done a nice job as Willoughby. He looks much better when he’s smiling instead of frowning darkly (which is what Willoughby should be doing anyway…so double reason for having him smile more).

The Steele sisters were quite good. Lucy was pretty, obnoxious, and flatterous (not a word, but we’ll roll with it). Anne was silly and talkative. The way they had her spill the beans about Lucy and Edward’s engagement was perfect…it was a perfectly plausible conversation, and a perfectly plausible slip on her part.

John Dashwood is very good – you can see that he really is rather uncomfortable about ripping off his sisters (oh whoops, sorry, Fanny, HALF-sisters), and does want to do something to help them, but is too spineless to really stand up to Fanny at all.

Fanny is a little over-the-top, I admit, but she’s not too bad, and she is rather amusing. And this version has the least cringe-worthy reaction to the announcement of Edward and Lucy’s engagement, so that’s a plus. Mrs. Ferrars is good too, though, again, I think she may have been just a bit too over-the-top.

This has my favorite Sir John and Lady Jennings. I think they strike just the right balance of meddlesome, annoying, and good-hearted. They’re a bit subtler than their ’95 counterparts, which I prefer.

Sir John comes across in a slightly better light than he does in the book, even – we see him having heart-to-hearts with Colonel Brandon (though still in a Sir John-ish way), and refusing to gossip about the Colonel’s ward. I know that’s a change, but it’s not a change I have a problem with.

Lady Middleton is indeed insipid, as she should be, though otherwise not very fleshed-out…neither are her children. But they are THERE, at least. One can’t have everything.

I liked Mrs. Palmer, though truth be told, she probably wasn’t quite annoying enough. Mr. Palmer was a bit of a non-entity, I admit. But the ’95 is the only S&S in which he gets more than about thirty seconds worth of characterization, so that’s nothing unusual.

And in this version we also get to see Eliza – there is a scene in which we see Colonel Brandon visiting her and her baby while in London. She seems very young and very naïve – almost child-like.

We also get to see Colonel Brandon and Willoughby’s duel. I would like to say that I liked the duel scene. I’ve seen some say that they thought it highly improbable, the book never mentioned swords, etc., but I don’t see why they couldn’t have used swords. All Colonel Brandon says about it in the book is, “We met by appointment, he to defend, I to punish his conduct. We returned unwounded, and the meeting, therefore, never got abroad.” Could this have meant just firing into the air so that honor would technically be served? Certainly. But it didn’t have to mean that. (And yes, I know that in the mini-series Willoughby technically is wounded, but since it’s a wound not much bigger than a paper-cut, I’m not going to nitpick about it.)

And anyway, the cuts between the duel and Marianne writing her letter are cool. : )

This brings me to another point: the relationship between Colonel Brandon and Marianne. In this version, Marianne likes Colonel Brandon somewhat from very early on. She’s never as harsh towards him as she is in the book. She starts noticeably warming to him around the time of her illness, and it’s made very clear that she marries him because she has fallen in love with him. Instead of overcoming her romantic sensibilities, she realizes that Colonel Brandon is “the true romantic;” he is a romantic in a deeper, more substantial way than Willoughby ever was, and he therefore appeals to her in a deeper and more substantial way than Willoughby ever did.

All of this is different from the book. Marianne never likes Colonel Brandon very much at all until after she’s told of Willoughby’s conduct toward his ward, and we are explicitly told that she doesn’t fall in love with Colonel Brandon until after she marries him – in other words, she marries a man she is not in love with – and that marrying him at all was a complete overthrowing of her previously-held romantic maxims.

So Marianne and Colonel Brandon’s relationship is a departure from the book. But you know what? I am absolutely fine with that. You see, I was one of those people who was not satisfied when I first finished reading Sense and Sensibility. Call this weird if you like, but all throughout the book I thought that Colonel Brandon would marry Elinor and Edward would marry Marianne (and I still think Jane could have done that, by the way). I didn’t think their marriage was plausible. I was not satisfied with the measly few sentences assuring us that Marianne did come to love Colonel Brandon every bit as much as she had loved Willoughby…in time. It took watching the mini-series to sell me on the Marianne/Colonel Brandon relationship.

Now that I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, I can see more where Jane Austen was coming from, and I’m more amenable to their relationship in the book. But I think I love their relationship in the mini-series even more, in a different way. (Maybe sometime I’ll write an in-depth post comparing their relationship in the book to their relationship in the mini-series, because I have lots and lots of thoughts about it.)

Another objection I have sometimes heard about this mini-series is that the feel of it is too dark and depressing for an Austen movie. I must beg to disagree. It’s true that most of the lighting is muted and overcast, but the color palette of the movie is more pastel than dark. Personally speaking, I found the overall feel of the ’08 S&S to be less depressing than the ’95. In the ’95, you get the sense that Elinor is supremely isolated – not only does she have no one to confide in, but Marianne and Mrs. Dashwood both seem so self-absorbed that Elinor is very alone. It feels like Elinor is suffering heartbreak with no one and nothing to help her in any way, and that made the whole movie feel a bit depressing to me. (I’m not knocking the ’95 here, by the way – I think it was a legitimate decision to tell the story that way.)

In the ’08 S&S, we get much more of a sense that Marianne and Mrs. Dashwood truly care about Elinor – not just at the end, when they realize what she’s been going through, but all through the story, when they don’t know what she’s suffering. Also, making Mrs. Dashwood a little more sensible gives her more camaraderie with Elinor, which makes her seem less alone. All this made the ’08 feel lighter in tone to me than the ’95.

Now, as promised, I’ll mention a couple things that could have been done better.

First of all, when Colonel Brandon and Willoughby first meet at the Dashwoods, it’s implied that they already know each other, and that Colonel Brandon already has reason to mistrust Willoughby. This is before Colonel Brandon goes to London, and before he even knows Eliza has been found. He can’t know about Willoughby’s misconduct yet. So why does he mistrust him?

I suppose we can fill in the gaps by saying that Willoughby might have already had a bad reputation in general (which would fit in with the theme of it not being a good idea to fall in love with someone you hardly know). If that were the case, though, you would think the Middletons and the Palmers would know that too, not just Colonel Brandon. So, yes. That’s a bit of a flaw in the screenplay.

Another scene which could have been better is Willoughby’s confession scene. In the book, this is our chance to feel a little sorry for Willoughby, to realize he does have some glimmers of good in him, to say, “You are a total heel, but we do pity you a bit.” This is Elinor’s reaction, and it was my reaction as the reader. But in the mini-series, Elinor shows no sign of relenting toward Willoughby, and Willoughby acts more like a sulky child than anything else. I think most viewers would feel distaste for Willoughby, rather than pity, during this scene in the mini-series. I think that’s a shame, as I like having that bit of sympathy for Willoughby.

Of course, another issue is the infamous opening scene…it’s unnecessary and in bad taste, and in my opinion, it’s bad storytelling as well. You don’t want to know that one of the main characters is a scoundrel from the very beginning! We are supposed to be taken in by Willoughby along with the Dashwoods.

Something else (which I mentioned in passing before) is that there a couple little things which seem – inspired, shall we say – by the 1995 version: most noticeably, the scene where Marianne goes out in the rain and needs to be rescued by Colonel Brandon. Edward befriending Margaret is another plot point that was in both versions.

I think that the good far outweighs the bad, though. Adaptation-wise, it’s quite good – just as close to the book as the ’95, if not more – and it’s also a lovely movie, just as a movie. But most importantly, this movie makes Sense and Sensibility come alive in a beautiful way. I had read the book before I watched this, but I didn’t love it. It took watching this mini-series to bring the characters and the story to life for me…it made me love the book, and S&S is now my favorite Jane Austen story. And that’s what an adaptation should be about – bringing the original story to life. If it can do that, the little details aren’t as important.

So, in a nutshell, I highly, highly recommend this mini-series. It’s a fabulous movie and a fabulous adaptation. Give it a try. : )