A heartwarming period drama

One of my favorite movies!!!

One of my favorite movies of all time!

As much as I enjoyed the film, I think they have made sacrifices for the sakes of using well known names. The sisters are supposed to be 13, 16 (Winslet) and 19 (Thompson), and the mother 40 (Jones). Colonel Brandon (Rickman) is 35. I can understand lifting the ages by a few years, for the sakes of modern audiences (a 16yo looking for a husband is a little young). Performances were good, but not good to the point that I could see why they strayed so far.

Tortuous in a good way ??? Excellent cast and strong acting, and also so many subtly funny lines but I didn’t write them down.

Nesta releitura de Jane Austen, as protagonistas enfrentam desafios amorosos e decepções que as obrigarão a ressignificar o sentido da vida e do verdadeiro amor. Doce, leve e criativo.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the cast, and even by the contrast of personalities between Elinor and Marianne; in fact, Jane Austen's style is evident in each of these characters. However, I must admit that I didn’t enjoy either the narrative pace or the abrupt conclusion; after all, unlike Pride and Prejudice, Edward spent most of the movie away from Elinor. In addition, the bland relationship that emerged between Marianne and Brandon felt unconvincing, as I find it hard to believe that Marianne — given her indifference towards Brandon — would accept him without being more explicit about it. For this reason, the conclusion of this film seemed very unsatisfactory to me; in fact, the most realistic scene was Elinor’s outburst of emotion, as throughout the movie she accumulated so much disappointment and pain that it made perfect sense for her to react that way in the end. However, it saddens me to accept that this was all there was. I would have even preferred that the final wedding had been Elinor and Edward’s, as that would have made much more sense than the sudden leap between Marianne and Brandon, since the last thing we saw was Brandon reading to Marianne. Hence, the abruptness of all this. I don’t know if the book is the same, but certainly the script of this movie was very unsatisfactory.

A well written movie with great actors.

One of my favorite movies. So very emotional on all fronts.

Pretty hard to beat as historical romance goes. Great cast, classic Hugh Grant; who cares if Alan's a bit on the old side and Emma Thompson's character's reaction at the end is movingly real. And visually lovely too.

One of my favourite films - Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman are excellent! Slightly different story from the original Jane Austin novel but superb!

Ang Lee's insightful directing combines w great performances, movie truly carries the core of source material. Spirit of the book is there caring, sarcastic, playful. My most favorite Jane Austen adaptation and one of the best book adaptation movies.

Excellent!! 90s was an excellent time for films especially for Jane Austen!! Sets and the acting was so good! Emma was great but it is true a 36 year old playing a 24 year old but the end 25. Stretch! But I could not imagine anyone else. They cannot do this today!! 2007 version was so good too Eleanor actress was so good and better age but I do prefer the 90s version! If they did this today, they would change everything even how the characters look! Updating films the past 10 years most are disasters. I am so glad they made films so good in the 90s and early 2000s before they started updating most films terribly. 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice was a beginning of a disaster of a film. They changed slowly over time.

Sense and Sensibility is a rare success among literary adaptations in that it managed to capture the essence of Jane Austen's novel whilst also updating it enough to appeal to modern tastes. Emma Thompson's script effectively caught the irony of Austen's original book, and showed a good understanding of the context of its age as seen from the viewpoint of our own age. What Thompson's script wonderfully achieves is to humanise the ‘good' characters in a way that prevents them from seeming dreary. In the book Edward Ferrars is pleasant but dull. In the film, he is portrayed by Hugh Grant, who brings a shy humour to the role, delivering his lines in a droll way that stops him from seeming stuffy, despite his buttoned-down clothes. Edward is not the only character who benefits from a warmer treatment. Margaret herself is here a lively and vivacious child, if a little thoughtless at times, and a welcome contrast to the idiotic character in the book. Mrs Dashwood (Gemma Jones) too is given a quiet dignity here, whereas Austen portrays her as rather silly. More important though is the film's treatment of Colonel Brandon. In the book Brandon is an unglamorous second choice after Marianne's first lover lets her down. In the film he is played by Alan Rickman, who lends him a romantic quality. It takes a long time for Marianne (Kate Winslet) to see his merits, as she is put off by the age disparity between Brandon and her. This objection might have been overcome by time, but Marianne instead falls for the superficially charming John Willoughby (Greg Wise). How do you make a good modern film based on a book that holds opinions that are out of touch with today's society? Thompson had the unenviable task of finding a way to skilfully sail a path between keeping the film authentic to its time while giving it enough modernity to prevent it from becoming a museum piece. Not everyone will be happy with the result. The film has been criticised for reducing the role of the female characters to that of waiting around for the men to marry them, and for not addressing issues of class. Certainly the focus of the film is on the women finding the right husbands, but this is just as true of the book. Similarly the film presents a limited view of the class system, with barely any interaction with lower class people, but again so does the book. Thompson could hardly add new working class characters or add new roles for the women characters without rendering the source material an absurdity, and this would have offended Austen fans just as much. The film is not so caught up in its interest in the economics of the time that it forgets the central premise of Jane Austen's novel – the two opposing strands of sense and sensibility. Jane Austen firmly takes the side of sense, and this is in some ways a weakness in the novel since the advocates of sensibility (Marianne, Mrs Dashwood, Willoughby, Margaret) are all portrayed as wrong or silly. In our own age, sensibility is more popular, and there is more interest in the open expression of feeling, even in Britain. While the film ultimately comes down on the side of Sense, just as Austen's book does, there is more ambiguity about the virtues of putting reason over emotion here. There are occasions when it is hard not to feel frustrated by the constant reserve and restraint of the characters. They often close down the uninhibited speeches of others, and moments of intimacy are lost amidst bowing, curtseying and drinking cups of tea. They are obliged to politely put up with the unbearable conversation of vulgar or snobbish relatives without openly saying what they think of them, because this would be considered a social faux pas. Sense and Sensibility makes a good template for how adaptations of classic literature should be made. It balances historical context against the values of our own age. It is filmed in a fetching and pretty manner, although the unforgiving use of bright light and camera close-ups does draw our attention to the fact that Thompson is too old and Winslet not pretty enough for their roles. Each scene is carefully mounted by director Ang Lee in a manner that allows the actors to convey their emotions on screen, often by use of deft and subtle touches. However the film is democratic towards its cast. No actor is allowed to dominate the movie or steal scenes from anyone else. The result is a film that is poised and assured, perhaps the best of all literary adaptations. I wrote a longer appreciation of Sense and Sensibility on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2018/07/08/sense-and-sensibility-1995/

Loved this Movie! Great writing, performances, and actors!

Not exactly faithful to the book but tells the story well nevertheless. Beautifully written and directed, excellent performances from a stellar cast. I am sure Jane Austen would have forgiven Emma Thompson for the liberties she took with the script.

Best Austen adaptation to date.

Time passes quickly as if you are in the airy mist which seems to have influenced the cinematography.The screen ensemble knows you are there with them.

Emma Thompson has better chemistry with Alan Rickman than with Hugh Grant. Given the sizable age gap between Kate Winslet and Professor Snape, I found myself expecting Snape to end up with Professor Trelawney by the end but nope. And don't give me "it happened in the book" as a counter-argument, there was a more respectable age difference in the Jane Austen novel. That nitpick aside, Sense & Sensibility is a really good period piece/romantic drama with great performances & cinematography, a riveting script that gave Emma Thompson an unusual Oscar combination for Best Actress & Best Adapted Screenplay and Ang Lee's direction helping the film stay true to the novel while still updating it in such a way that it appeals to changing, *ahem*, sensibilities of the late '90s. I don't think this is quite as compelling or witty as Pride & Prejudice but this is still excellent filmmaking in its own right. P.S. Is it just me or is this the only one of Jane Austen's holy trinity of novels - Pride and Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility and Emma - that didn't get a 21st-century retelling? Maybe we should do that, provided we have the right filmmakers to avoid the usual nonsense that results in such lovely words as "woke", a term which I will *never* use unironically, regardless of my opinion on the media's quality.

Oh my gosh, where do I start? This is beautifully shot, beautifully adapted to the big screen, and (I know, I know, it's sacrilege), I almost prefer it to the book. I watch this movie all the time, and if you like Jane Austen or Regency era England, this is definitely for you. My husband even loves this film. This is a visually stunning masterpiece, and only the likes of Ang Lee and Emma Thompson could have brought this story to life like this. Seriously good.