Review: The New Sense and Sensibility Trailer Looks Pretty Good.

Yes, I know. The movie came out weeks ago and I’m late to the party. But does that mean I’m not going to talk about the trailer?

Nope.

It’s no secret that I love a good adaptation of Jane Austen’s books. I’ve watched almost all the movie and T.V. adaptations (though I’m still finding more that I wasn’t previously aware of) and even did a post ranking them. So, when I found out that a new adaptation of Sense and Sensibility was coming out, I became pretty excited.

From the trailer, a few good things stick out to me. First of all, the movie is being made by the same people who made the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which, while not as accurate to the book as the BBC adaptation from the 90s, is still a delightful movie. That in of itself makes me hope that the movie will be good.

Another thing that I really liked about it was that the actors are, for once, the age of the characters. Mrs. Dashwood in the book was around her 40s and the actress they cast as Mrs. Dashwood definitely is in line with that. Elinor and Marianne meanwhile are supposed to be 19 and 16 respectively, and the new adaptation actually does their ages justice, which I appreciated since the original adaptation made them both look much older.

However, that’s not to say that this trailer is without its flaws. For one thing, it’s certainly less historically accurate than the original adaptation, especially with the fact that for much of the trailer, the girls’ hair is down, which was not allowed for girls older than 15 or 16 in the Regency era, as it was seen as immodest. I had this problem with the BBC adaptation of Sense and Sensibility from 2008, and it seems that this adaptation is suffering from the same issues.

Another issue is that Elinor seems more laid back in the trailer than she was in the book. In the book, Elinor was very mature for her age. While that certainly makes her stand out from the rest, critics have pointed out how it is less believable given how young she is, especially in comparison to other characters Austen wrote who displayed similar maturity but were much older than Elinor (think Anne Elliot from Persuasion, who is 26-27.) While I can appreciate if they took the liberty to give her a softer side, I really hope they don’t make her feel so much like a teenager that it takes away from her maturity.

The final issue with this, though it isn’t apparent from the trailer, is that apparently Mr. Palmer is being played by a female-to-male actress. From what research I’ve done, this appears to be true, and it’s a stupid casting decision. I just hope that it doesn’t ruin the movie completely.

Until next time,

M.J.