52 Films by Women Vol 10. 49. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (Director: Georgia Oakley)

Pictured: 'Oh my. I can see as far as my finger.' Edward Ferrars (George Mackay, right) leads the Dashwood sisters Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones, centre) and Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach, left) for a walk, the latter avoiding her studies, in a scene from director Georgia Oakley's screen adaptation of Jane Austen's 'Sense and Sensibility'. Still courtesy of Focus Features / Universal Pictures  

Adapted by Diana Reid and directed by Georgia Oakley, the second screen version of Jane Austen’s 1811 novel, Sense and Sensibility eclipses my memory of the Oscar-winning 1995 star-studded Emma Thompson-Ang Lee version. It is a film that speaks to the current financial fragility of the so-called Generation Z (born between 1996 and 2012), whose education is no guarantee of a good job or a home. It begins with the three Dashwood sisters, Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones), Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles) and Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) and their mother (Caitríona Balfe) being displaced from their large family estate, Norland, by a relation, after their father dies. Much to the chagrin of his wife, Fanny (Stacy Martin), John Dashwood (Tom Brooke) agrees to financially assist the Dashwood siblings, his half-sisters, though ‘they will not need such support if they are married’. The quartet relocate to Barton Cottage in Devonshire, the chief attraction of which is that ‘there is no Fanny’. Marianne hopes to continue her relationship with the rich but (as young people say) morally sus John Willoughby (Frank Dillane), who gifts her a horse, though not the means to stable it. Marianne has a second admirer, Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum, his face buried under a thick beard), who responds to Marianne’s honesty. Elinor attracts the attention of Edward Ferrars (George Mackay, affecting the perpetually surprised look of a man who didn’t expect to see peas on his plate). Edward aspires to join the church; Elinor is quite taken with his moral rectitude and is not averse to being a parson’s wife. The youngest sister, Margaret, is too young to marry and barely features in the plot.

Oakley mainly focuses on the dreamer Marianne, first shown lying in the long grass admiring a caterpillar that surmounts her finger. This is a star-making role for Creed-Miles, who strongly resembles her mother, the actress Samantha Morton, most recently seen turning men ‘back’ into pigs as Circe in Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster, The Odyssey. Marianne runs in the forest to stop a carriage, the rider bearing a letter for the Dashwood family that outlines their circumstances. Elinor is the family realist, first seen trying to settle a bill, being told (woundingly) ‘it is only a small sum’; in Austen understatement, oceans are but ponds. The family saviour is a go-between, Mrs Jennings (Fiona Shaw, heavy of bosom and hearty of laugh) who is determined to ensure Marianne and Elinor are married, and whose acquaintance of landowner Sir John Middleton (Turlough Covery), ensures that Sir John has new tenants for his otherwise empty – and low-ceilinged – cottage. There is a running if confusing joke in which Sir John presents Marianne with some dead pheasants as if they were a bouquet. Sir John is married, so the gesture has no courtly intent.

The production design and locations are mostly first rate. The departure from Norland is memorably rendered with John, Fanny, their son, and servants lined outside the grand manor as the poorer Dashwood relations depart with Mrs Jennings. You grimace at the size of the house that has been taken from them by their half-brother and his heartless wife; Fanny and John’s young son, Harry (Paulie Bovingdon) having no interest in one day inheriting the estate. We are sensitive to the cramped confines of Barton Cottage and also to the splendid architecture of scenes set in London. I was distracted by scenes filmed in London’s King Charles Street. Somehow Oakley and her team have disguised the tented presence of a group of protestors calling for the proscription of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who have been camped opposite the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCDO) for several years. The exterior of the FCDO and HM Treasury buildings both feature in one scene, viewed through a carriage window. Horse Guards Parade, where FCDO employees assemble during fire drills holding lollypop style placards, as if placing bids during an auction, is also the setting for an exterior dialogue scene.

Elinor and Marianne are both portrayed as women of agency. Learning that neither Edward nor John plan to visit Barton Cottage, they head to London to confront them, accompanying Mrs Jennings, who unhelpfully highlights the danger from highwaymen. At a ball, Marianne spies John with another woman, to whom he is engaged. Edward is also engaged to the otherwise penniless Lucy Steele (Ceara Coveney, wearing a gown that doesn’t suggest that her character lacks a sovereign). It was a promise made between the Ferrars and Steele families before Lucy lost her fortune. Edward is determined to honour it. Explaining this, Mackay resembles a man presented with the prospect of consuming a glass of unpasteurised milk.  

This is a film that scant attention to food preparation or consumption, though we note Mrs Jennings’ proximity to a glass of wine. The cinematographer Arnaud Potier ensures that the night-time interiors look as if illuminated by candlelight. The light underscores the fragility of Elinor and Marianne’s financial situations – and their hearts - easy to extinguish.

Pictured: Sisters Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones, left) and Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles, right) stare anxiously in a scene from the 2026 screen adaptation of author Jane Austen's 'Sense and Sensibility'. Screenplay: Diana Reid. Direction: Georgia Oakley. Still courtesy of Focus Features / Universal Pictures

The casting comes unstuck towards the end. We don’t entirely believe in the quarrel between Elinor and Marianne, the latter offended that the former has not confided in her. Marianne’s obsession with Willoughby doesn’t allow her to acknowledge her older sister’s aspirations. Edgar-Jones doesn’t entirely convince as a woman who would be happy as a parson’s wife, nor that Elinor admires Edward’s commitment to Lucy. She asserts that his honour confirms her esteem. I imagined the audience muttering, ‘oh yeah, and the rest.’ We do not entirely agree with Elinor and Marianne’s choices, not least when we learn that Willoughby contributed to Colonel Brandon’s heartbreak.

Although Marianne catching a life-threatening chill is the romance’s most dramatic action, it is eclipsed by the late movie duel between Colonel Brandon and Willoughby, shown through a window. ‘They have no seconds. Nor a doctor,’ Mrs Dashwood comically remarks. Austen is not known for her portrayal of physical violence. It is no surprise that Colonel Brandon fires into the air, while Willoughby, who was otherwise keen to reconnect with Marianne for reasons that are highly suspect, misses his shot. Not so with Eliza, the woman Willoughby made pregnant, who was the love of Colonel Brandon’s life (as told to us) and who died in childbirth, the cause of Colonel Brandon’s fuming resentment. His firing into the air is the equivalent of a hitherto-suppressed silent scream.

Two romances, one kiss. That’s what Oakley delivers. Elinor discovers that Lucy Steele’s wedding did not involve Edward. Though he was willing to lose his fortune for her, the parsonage, secured by Colonel Brandon, did not appeal to Lucy, who chose his brother instead; viewers might conclude, ‘what a cow!’ Elinor and Edward share a moment and leave the frame, the camera focusing on a child’s swing. For her part, Marianne acknowledges Colonel Brandon’s attention, though he is clearly pining after another woman. I remained unconvinced that their union would be satisfactory; Oakley can’t bear to show it either. Oakley’s film has not reached the box-office heights of director Ang Lee’s version (worldwide gross $38,168,595 as of 4 November 2026) but it is full of enjoyable moments. As for a solution to housing insecurity, the relatively few landowners of 19^th Century England offer little comfort. The number of 21^st Century property owners (as opposed to private tenants) is also decreasing.

Reviewed at Picturehouse Clapham (screen four), South London, Friday 6 November 2026, 14:00 screening