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Rating:  - Sense & Sensibilities
Both my wife and I enjoyed this production very much although probably not as much as the version with Emma Thompson & Kate Winslet.
Rating:  - Love It!
I am a Jane Austen Fanatic. I was more than pleaseantly surprised to find that Amazon carries so many titles and versions. My favorites of course are the BBC adaptations. This newest version of Sense and Sensibility covered aspects of the novel that were not presented in the Hollywood version, which I found delightful. A lot less glitz and glamour. More like what I think times were like back when a woman's worth was measured by the type of matches she made.
Rating: - Promises made and broken and the kindness of strangers
This is a lovely and lush film. There are some scenes that don't exist in the book (Sense and Sensibilities by Jane Austen) but are hinted at in the backstory or off the pages. This is a lovely adaptation by Andrew Davies. Even when he adds scenes not in the book, he maintains faith to the spirit of the book.
This film has focused more on the differences between the family's life at Norland and their new life in the cottage in Devonshire, than has been the case in other adaptations. There is a lot of use of the sea and the landscape in Devonshire, highlighting the isolation of the Dashwoods from the life that they once had. From being women of leisure, they now live in a cottage with only two servants and must do much of the menial tasks themselves. They are learning but it's difficult for them as they must learn to economize and yet still maintain their manners and style of living as they associate with Sir John and his family and neighbors.
There's obviously a bond between the sisters but where Elinor controls her feelings, Marianne allows her feelings free range. In fact, Marianne at times seems to glory more in showing her feeling to the world than in feeling them herself. Elinor holds her feeling close to herself as treasures, while Marianne paints them on a marquee. In a society where appearance and surface adherence to propriety is more important than the actual propriety, it is dangerous to allow oneself to show what is felt. Elinor's mask of calm protects her from censure or ridicule but Marianne has no such protection as she hides nothing of what she feels.
Because of their character they each comes close to loosing what they love. Davies may have changed, added, deleted, or emphasized some of the books scenes but he's nevertheless maintained the heart and soul of the story. We feel for these people and because of the writing and the directing we get a feel for the rigid society in which they lived.
It's almost impossible for those of us who have grown up in today's vastly different society where women do have rights and can inherit or work at employment of their own choosing to understand the much narrower choices available to women at the Dashwood's level of society. Remembering too, that much of their problems came from their father's son refusing to honor the promise he made to take care of them. Much of the movie revolves around promises made, promises kept, and promises left unfulfilled. Then, as now, a person isn't honorable because of their place in society, the amount of money or status that they have, but because of their actions.
All in all, the film was an excellent rendition of the the novel (as I remember it). Now, I have to slip the book into my reading stack so that I can refresh my mind on the details.
Rating:  - Good, but not Great
There are a few things that I love about this adaptation. However, there are a few things that really bring down the enjoyability of the program. First of all, the first few minutes are tacky and are not appropriate to the tone of Jane Austen's novels. At first, I thought I was watching the wrong DVD. The Willoughby (sp?) character is woefully miscast and does not come across at all as a seducer of women. My overall impression of this program is that it is relatively fun to watch (it is a great story, afterall), but Emma Thompson's version is superior in nearly every way.
Rating: - "Miss Austen Regrets" a valuable portrait of Jane Austen.
Jane Austen was a complicated person who was very poorly represented in the calm placid portrait of her that is usually reproduced. "Becoming Jane" gave us a young athlete who planned a runaway elopement. This film balances that Jane at age 20 with a mature woman who has had disappointments and troubles. The script is much more fact-based and uses many of JA's words. Olivia Williams is a better image of Jane Austen than the prettied-up portrait her Victorian relatives created. However, the tone here is too grim. Even in the last months of her life, she was writing letters full of jokes to her nephew and nieces, began a very funny novel, "Sanditon" and wrote a long comic poem about Winchester.
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