For episode 7 we watched Sense and Sensibility, a new retelling of the Jane Austen novel, thirty-one years after Ang Lee's 1995 version with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. We went in wondering if the story needed telling again this soon. We came out agreeing it did, and we landed on the exact same score: 4.5 out of 5.
A darker, more naturalistic take
The director and screenwriter had said beforehand they wanted to do two things differently: spend more time on the relationship between the Dashwood sisters, and make the family's circumstances feel more naturalistic instead of dressing them up. That second goal is what stood out most watching it. The film is rainier, darker, and more candlelit than the story usually looks on screen, right down to dance scenes lit only by candles because there was no electricity in the setting. Jeff went back and rewatched the trailer for the 1995 version afterward and was struck by how sunny and idealized it was by comparison, well-lit in nearly every scene except the one where Marianne gets caught in the rain.
Matt had a more personal reason to notice the shift: he remembers watching the Ang Lee version with their mom in the '90s and struggling to make it all the way through. This one didn't feel like that at all. He also liked how the cinematography moved between speakers in a scene and cut away to nature shots of berries and trees, and how the Dashwood family's displacement into a smaller home came through in a lived-in way, loose hair and plainer clothing instead of everyone looking perfectly put together.
A bench scene and a divisive casting choice
Matt's favorite moment was a museum scene late in the film between Eleanor and Edward, the two framed on opposite ends of a bench as Eleanor tells Edward she won't forgive him if he doesn't do the honorable thing, then leaves him to sit with the decision alone. He called the framing one of the best things in the film.
The one thing both of us flagged was the casting of Marianne. Jeff thought she read distractingly younger than her actual age, especially next to a Colonel Brandon who looks decades older, and found her more over-the-top confrontation with Willoughby a little much. Matt had the same reaction to that scene, calling it almost too intense for his taste, though he allowed it may have been the point: Marianne is written as the wild-spirited sister, and Jeff's wife made the same argument watching it with them.
Where we landed
Jeff gave it a 4.5, with the Marianne casting as his only real knock against it. Matt matched him at 4.5, same reservation about the Willoughby confrontation scene included. Thirty-one years is apparently not too soon to retell a story, as long as you find a genuinely different way to tell it.
