Walking into the advanced screening of Georgia Oakley’s “Sense and Sensibility,” I received a toile sleep mask as a promotional item. In line for popcorn, I saw a large group of young women dressed to see the film in pajama sets and satin robes. Unlike the obvious mix of hot-pink ensembles and suited patrons seen on Barbenheimer weekend, this apparel felt like a much more tacit dress code, and I couldn’t help but feel that, even in my trousers and T-shirt, I was overdressed. Unfamiliar with Jane Austen’s novel (which this film adapts), I looked forward to leaving this slumber party screening as part of the knowing crowd.
Unlike the straightforward costume mimicry of Barbenheimer, these getups were less about pulling together an outfit the Dashwood sisters might wear and more about how their story is meant to make you feel (through the film, of course, but also through the nostalgia it unearths). Oakley does this masterfully, delivering a film that feels warm, cozy, and brimming with the volatility and tenderness of a quintessential sleepover.
After their father’s death, the Dashwood sisters, Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones), Marianne (Esme Creed-Miles), and Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), along with their mother (Caitriona Balfe), are left penniless. As was customary, the family’s estate passed entirely to their brother. He and his pitiless wife, Fanny (Stacy Martin), quickly take over the home, leaving the Dashwood girls in the lurch. Their only hope of escaping uncertainty and poverty is to marry well, and “Sense and Sensibility” is not only a survey of the pursuit of authentic love amidst binding social politics, but also a delightful coming-of-age tale with sisterhood as its supporting foundation.
But as always, love does not come easy. Elinor, wise and reserved, clumsily tries to hide her fancy for Fanny’s stolid, poised elder brother, Edward (George Mackay), whose feelings are reciprocated but bound by social expectation. Marianne, whimsical and perpetually impassioned, is swept in the storm of the charismatic but unreliable Willoughby (Frank Dillane). Just within her peripheral vision is the quiet, awkward, and plainly sincere Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum), who is timidly enchanted with her but lacks the vitality to pique her interest.
This quest for love finds the sisters brooding by the fire, traipsing through the woods, cuddling in bed, and impulsively journeying to London with the generous but meddling Mrs. Jennings (a riotous Fiona Shaw).
More than anything else, “Sense and Sensibility” is a physical film: corporeal, organic, and implied. Oakley’s direction, bolstered by Arnaud Potier’s cinematography, turns berry-stained dresses, sweeping landscapes, and long hair and skirts billowing as they run through the woods (sometimes indulgent, other times escapist) into impressionist moments.
Edgar-Jones delivers a beautifully bashful performance, embodying Elinor’s insular qualities without stripping away any feeling. Pained glances flutter into attempted neutrality, making each time we “catch” Elinor feeling all the more evocative. Creed-Miles, who is the film’s standout, oscillates between brooding and bellowing. Refusing to be jaded, Marianne feels her emotions freely, if at times recklessly. The sisters here embody the spectrum of being in love: from paralyzing to frantic.
The ensemble of men do just as well to make their performances distinct, also existing in the bodies and expressions of their characters more than the words: Willoughby is flamboyantly charming, large and sweeping, Edward is dignified at times to a fault, always exacting and measured, and Colonel Brandon is ceaselessly wavering, almost like he never knows which foot he’s currently standing on. In this regard, Reid’s screenplay takes a noticeable backseat to performance, but it does so generously rather than floundering.
Oakley’s film is a love letter to puzzling emotions and total surrender. Womanhood, sisterhood, and love are profoundly volatile experiences that shape us and leave us unprepared. They are trial by fire, chaptered by periods of agony, wit, and radiance, all of which Oakley and company bring poignantly to the fore.
This film ignites memories of the tingling static of first love, the devastating ache of heartbreak, and the rosy recovery of sisters, friends, or both pulling you from its trenches and back into the clutches of hope. Executed with tactile sincerity and incredible emotional acuity on all sides, “Sense and Sensibility” is a film you’ll want to snuggle up with, even when it hurts most—perhaps especially then.
