Customer Reviews

Sense and Sensibility

5 star:		(187)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

As the person I sent this DVD to as a gift can only speak french, I was very disappointed to discover that this DVD did not include the french language version as advertised.

It was however sent out in a timely manner so I give it a one.

I received this DVD as a gift & loved it. The characters were an absolute delight to watch. I enjoyed reading the book too but when words can come off a page & be seen on screen like this adaptation is, it's simply: any viewers delight!

This movie is one of my all-time favorites. I watch it because I find it warm and comforting. The drama and acting was superb.

I think Alan Rickman just about stole the show. He's wonderful in everything. This is the only movie that I've seen him play a good guy, and he's absolutely wonderful. You can't help but to fall in love with him. Where are the Colonel Brandons of this world!

I was highly impressed with Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson. They were so convincing as the Dashwood sisters that I'll never be able to separate them from the roles.

On top of the fine acting, magnificent scenery, and lovely costumes, you have thoughtful cinematography. Pay close attention to the framing of the scenes. I particularly like the scene where the atlas is delivered to the cottage but not by Edward. While Elinor and her mother are talking about Edward you notice that the camera zooms away. The door frame becomes a picture frame for the scene. You feel like you're in the house, almost eavesdropping. Then Elinor closes the atlas as if to say the conversation is over. There are subtle moves like that throughout the entire movie.

It seems that for a few years, Hollywood couldn't turn out Austen movies fast enough. This is the only English production of the bunch, and it is wonderful.

The casting is perfect. I thought it very silly that Emma Thompson was going to be the 19 year old Eleanor, and since she produced the movie I thought that was just silly vanity. But she is actually perfect as the too-sensible-for-her-own-good Eleanor. Kate Winslet is great as flaky Marianne. Even little Margaret (Austen's only fully-realized child character) is great as the spunky pre-teen. I remember when the movie came out one reviewer said that Hugh Grant's character "looks like he's forgotten to take the coat hanger out of his clothing" and that is so true... but he's so good as the clueless cad.

The film is beautifully shot, with great sets and scenery. It's a little hard for a modern person to understand why the Dashwoods were so upset to have to move to such a charming cottage! Historical perspective is maintained in the movie, though.

It is also very well written, with my very favourite line in any movie appearing (though I've read the book twice looking for it). Truly words to live by, Mrs. Dashwood tells blabbermouth Margaret that if she can't think of anything appropriate to say, "please keep your conversation to the roads and the weather!" Advice that has never failed me yet :-)

This is a wonderful movie with a wonderful cast and beautiful script. I don't really know what else to say except that I absolutely adore this film. Alan Rickman is superb as Colonel Brandon, I fall in love with him over and over again each time I watch this movie. He's wonderful, as is Hugh Grant as Edward Ferrars. Both characters are so likeable and real, they fit perfectly with their characters and make each viewing as enjoyable as the last. Kate Winslet, as well, is one of my favorite actresses. She fits so well in period pieces like this one.

This film is great whether or not you've read the book. It's good all on it's own. My only complaint is that I cannot picture Eleanor as only 19. While I've always pictured her well above her years, I have a difficult time accepting her age in the film. This is overlooked by Emma Thompson's brilliant portrayal of her.

This is one of my all-time favourite movies. The casting, the music, the sets--couldn't be better. A triumph for Emma Thompson.

Although the Pride and prejudice tv series with Colin Firth and Jenifer Ehle impressed me, I have to admit that my favorite adaptation of a Jane Austen novel remains Emma Thompson's and Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility.

This movie is an adaptation of Jane Austen's first novel in which three sisters, named Elinor, Marianne, Margaret, and their mother have to move out of their home and relocate in a small cottage, due to the death of their father whose house has become the property of their brother-in-law and of his avaricious wife. At the same time, Elinor and Marianne both fall in love with gentlemen, played by Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant and Greg Wise, (who became in real life the husband of Emma Thompson herself) and whose lives are not what they seem to be.

As I don't want to reveal too much of the plot, I just want to say that what really impressed me was how Ang Lee managed to keep his direction very simple. There are no useless close-ups, no overbearing music and no over acting with his actors. Instead, he just lets them interpret their roles in the most subtlest way. And, unlike certain Jane Austen adaptations, Ang Lee doesn't use flashbacks to explain incidents that occur in the past or to enrich the character's dialogues. Instead, he just lets the actors speak and explain what happened. Finally, Ang Lee's shots look just like asian paintings and add details that were not included in the novel, but enhance the context of the british society in Jane Austen's novel, such as the grand ball which instead of occurring in a big room, happens through different rooms, each divided by a certain social status.

As for Emma Thompson's very funny script, she manages to condense the novel's plot in two hours, with such efficiency that she doesn't lose any of the important elements of the story. Not only that, she also gives room to certain characters like Margaret, and even enriches the story with scenes that never occurred in the book, like the discussion between Elinor and Edward in the library as they manage to get Margaret out of her hiding spot. The scene is so funny and believable in its dialogue that you really think that it was in the book, which was something that a professor, or a viewer I'm not too sure, told Emma Thompson and her producer, something they both revealed in the commentaries on the DVD.

Speaking of special features, I loved the details and information that Emma Thompson and her producer gave in their commentaries, some of which were also noted in the production diaries of the movie. You get to learn more about the movie 's production and also on her work as screenwriter and all the modifications she had to do to transpose the novel into a movie.

Finally, there is, in the special features, an excerpt from the Golden Globes ceremony in 1996, during which Emma Thompson received a prize and did a great speech, imagining what Jane Austen would have said if she had been at that ceremony.

In the end, I don't think the movie would have been as successful and as funny if Emma Thopmson and Ang Lee had not been working on this movie, which really deserved its Oscar for best scriptwriting, Golden Globe, and golden bear at the Berlin film festival.

Je crois que le film a eu assez de louanges et qu'il n'a pas trop besoin des miennes. Reste à dire :les acteurs sont excellents, l'histoire merveilleuse, les décors et les costumes somptueux, bref un beau et bon film. Voilà, je pense que c'est un classique à avoir à la maison.

One of the Dashwood daughters is smart, down-to-earth and sensible. The other is wildly romantic and sensitive.

When those daughters are from Jane Austen novel, you can guess that there are going to be romantic problems aplenty for both of them -- along with the usual entailment issues, love triangles, sexy bad boys and societal scandals. Ang Lee deftly adapted Ausen's "Sense and Sensibility" into the sort of movie it should be -- a lushly beautiful, quietly passionate period drama.

When Mr. Dashwood dies, his entire estate is entailed to his weak son John and snotty daughter-in-law Fanny. His widow (Gemma Jones) and her three daughters are left with little money and no home.

Over the next few weeks, the eldest daughter Elinor (Emma Thompson) begins to fall for Fanny's studious, quiet brother Edward (Hugh Grant)... but being the down-to-earth one, she knows she hasn't got a chance. Her impoverished family soon relocates to Devonshire, where a tiny cottage is being rented to them by one of Mrs. Dashwood's relatives -- and Marianne (Kate Winslet) soon attracts the attention of two men. One is the quiet, much older Colonel Brandon (Alan Rickman), and the other is the dashing and romantic Willoughby (Greg Wise).

But things begin to spiral out of control when Willoughby seems about to propose to Marianne... only to abruptly break off his relationship with her. And during a trip to London, both Elinor and Marianne discover devastating facts about the men they are in love with -- both of them are engaged to other women. And after disaster strikes the Dashwood family, both the sisters will discover what real love is about...

I have to give Emma Thompson credit -- she not only turns in a brilliant, tightly-wound performance as Elinor (although she does look a bit old for the role), but she also wrote the faithful, solidly written script for Ang Lee's movie. The narrative glides silkily through the story, and adapts Austen's writing into elegantly vivid dialogue ("Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such... POLITE affections?") with some moments of gentle humor ("How did you find the silver? Was it all genuine?").

And Ang Lee takes what Thompson has wrought and makes it even lovelier, filling it with pale light, misty country hills, luxurious manorhouses, sunlit gardens and yards, and rain-swept fields where handsome men go riding on horseback. He has the knack for coaxing intense emotions from small gestures and words, and evoking budding love that is unsaid and unexpressed until the end (especially for Edward and Elinor). The absolute peak of his skill is right before Marianne's terrible illness, when she's left standing on a hilltop in the rain, whispering a Shakespearean sonnet.

Marianne and Elinor make excellent dual heroines for this book -- that still love and cherish each other, even though their polar opposite personalities frequently clash. Thompson plays Elinor as being tightly wound and a bit repressed, while Winslet races joyously through the dramatic and romantic parts of the story, only for Marianne to crash and burn when Willoughby betrays her.

And the supporting cast is no less brilliant -- Jones and Rickman are particularly good as the girls' loving mother, and the mellow, quiet Colonel Brandon (the man "everyone thinks well of, and nobody remembers to talk to") who stands by hoping for Marianne's happiness. Wise, Robert Hardy, Elizabeth Spriggs and Harriet Walters all give excellent performances, and even Hugh Grant (who usually annoys me like an unreachable itch) did a good job as the shy, studious Edward.

"Sense and Sensibility" is an emotionally powerful tale about two very different sisters, and the rocky road to finding a lasting love. And it was beautifully done by both of the people at its core -- Thompson's writing and acting, and Ang Lee's direction.

There is no greater Austen movie then this one! Ang Lee's direction is fabulous, and the cinematography breathtaking! The cast has such great chemistry, and casting is really superb, all very strong actors, and they work so well together! I have watched this movie about a hundred times, and I never tire of it.