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Jane Austen is my alpha and my omega, so last weekend, I went to see the new Sense and Sensibility adaptation directed by Georgia Oakley, with Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor Dashwood and Esmé Creed-Miles as her sister Marianne. It was…fine? I was never actually bored (the story itself is wonderful), but I did find it excessively slow, with very little of Austen’s humor shining through and an equal lack of chemistry between many of the actors.
But maybe it was difficult for me to value the film on its own merits, since I didn’t see the point of another version of Sense and Sensibility: the 1995 version directed by Ang Lee is, to me, perfect. Emma Thompson wrote the Oscar-winning script and plays Elinor Dashwood and it stars an array of great actors with an embarrassing amount of charisma and chemistry: Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, Hugh Laurie, Gemma Jones, Harriet Walter.
Walking out of the theater where I watched 2026’s version, I couldn’t stop thinking about the best scene from 1995. It’s one of the final scenes, and in it, Elinor’s love interest Edward (Hugh Grant) tells her it’s not him who got married to someone else (as she had assumed) but it’s his brother who got married. Elinor is a fairly reserved person, who had already tried to make peace with the idea that she wouldn’t marry her great love. In the scene, Emma Thompson packs all of Elinor’s relief upon hearing the news that Edward is still available into one explosive sob-hiccup, and she continues audibly blubbering – off camera – through his declaration of love for her. It’s both heartbreaking and hilarious, and perfectly encapsulates the character of Elinor Dashwood in one crying fit.
The next day, Instagram’s algorithm creepily suggested a post to me featuring this exact scene, you can watch it here. If you’re interested in a close-reading of another Austen scene, read A recipe for word vomit, which I wrote for Issue Two.
