Sense and Sensibility (1995)

Hollers and 'Sense'

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Sense and Sensibility on DVD.

Unlike most of the usual rolling hills, costume period drama, Merchant-Ivory type, century-old novel movies, Sense and Sensibility succeeds quite handily.

Emma Thompson adapts the Jane Austen novel and does quite a great job of it. Thompson is as accomplished a comic as she is a dramatic actress, and she injects some needed humor where it is appropriate; she creates an entertaining film, and not just a dry cliff notes version of a great old novel.

The film is directed by Ang Lee, the Taiwanese director of The Wedding Party and Eat Drink Man Woman. Like many of his predecessors, Lee, for the most part, seems to be relying on the rolling hills and beautiful sets to carry his visual poetry. But his compositions and blocking are superb and the freshness of Thompson's script gives him the opportunity to excel. The movie trots along nicely until about the 3/4 mark, where someone winds up bed ridden from pneumonia. but don't give up; it doesn't last long.

The cast is uniformly superb: the beautiful Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant, who is back in fine form as a sexless, yet humorous English fop.

Starring: Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Hugh Laurie, Imelda Staunton, Imogen Stubbs, Tom Wilkinson, Elizabeth Spriggs, Gemma Jones, Greg Wise, Harriet Walter, Imogen Stubbs
Written by: Emma Thompson, based on the novel by Jane Austen
Directed by: Ang Lee
MPAA Rating: PG for mild thematic elements
Running Time: 136 minutes
Date: January 1, 1996