‘Sense and Sensibility’ Review: Georgia Oakley Puts a Moody, Naturalistic Spin on the Jane Austen Classic

It’s been over 30 years since Ang Lee’s “Sense and Sensibility” became (for this critic, as for many) the Platonic ideal of the Jane Austen adaptation. Lush but controlled, dryly funny (thanks to Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning script) in that chatty, cheeky, keenly perceptive Austen way, Lee’s classic also boasted a formidable cast to unleash a floodgate of big, ugly-cry-inducing emotions by its finale. All of which is to say that Georgia Oakley had a tough act to follow in taking on the beloved tale of two sisters navigating matters of the heart in two vastly different ways. Though slightly muted (in both feeling and color palette) by comparison, Oakley’s moody, naturalistic spin on the Austen touchstone is a solid undertaking. It’s also a confident, bigger-budget follow-up to her BAFTA-winning debut “Blue Jean,” a poignant Thatcher-era queer drama; that film’s restrained yet tactile intimacy translates well to a late 18th-century England of stifled desire and pastoral exuberance.

There’s an earthy romanticism to Oakley’s vision of the times, with shots of quivering cattails, dew-spotted spiders, and floating lilypads complementing the roiling inner lives of sisters Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles) Dashwood. The younger Marianne is the more daring and vivacious of the two — a lightly shaky camera is on her heels as she adventures through the forest and receives news of their father’s death — and thankfully Oakley avoids the corny Mother Earth symbolism (à la “Hamnet”) that woodsy women amid sun-dappled pastures can so easily invite. The film’s natural splendor is pleasing, of course, but Oakley makes a point to show the grit and exhaustion of scaling hills and taking multi-day journeys by horse carriage — tough physical realities matched by the cruel social conventions that upend the Dashwoods’ lives.

Hewing close to the novel’s major plot beats, Diana Reid’s script efficiently lays out the stakes, as mother Dashwood (Caitríona Balfe) finds herself penniless and powerless against the takeover of her family’s estate by John Dashwood (Tom Brooke), her dead husband’s only male heir from his first marriage. Before she and the girls relocate to a modest seaside cottage in Devon, they suffer insults from John’s comically stingy wife Fanny (a wonderfully catty Stacy Martin) while Elinor meet-cutes with Fanny’s brother Edward (George MacKay), their mutual affection growing over wholesome nature walks and portrait sessions. (In a sweet reversal of the typical gendered gaze, it’s Elinor who draws Edward.) Sadly, Edward is too spineless and, er, sensible to follow his heart and lets a confused Elinor slip away when her family finally retreats to their new isolated home, courtesy of the kindly but coarse Mrs. Jennings (Fiona Shaw).

For her part, the blunt and free-spirited Marianne finds her match in the dashing Willoughby (Frank Dillane, the face of Harris Dickinson’s “Urchin”), brushing off the endearingly awkward advances of Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum, from “The Worst Person in the World,” speaking in a placid baritone). In Devon, Marianne and Willoughby enjoy a rustic romance of piano dueting and cliffside snuggling, and though he makes quite the statement in giving her a white steed, he never commits before heading back to London and remaining there for the foreseeable future.

London is where Edward is, too, so when Mrs. Jennings plans a trip to the capital, Marianne and Elinor eagerly tag along. The girls’ weathered white gowns and tousled, stallionesque manes confer a cottage-core modernity that’s set in contrast to the gilded interiors and tightly-wound updos of their London acquaintances. Between the two sisters, Elinor’s prudence and Marianne’s joie de vivre are charted out via Holly Blakey’s enchanting choreography: In the country, Marianne and Willoughby partake in a riotous, rollicking folk dance, while Elinor and Edward cross paths at a buzzy London ball where they dance a comparably restrained, yet slinky, sensual waltz.

Oakley’s beautifully textured worldbuilding — of soft, candlelit interiors; hunted game hanging on wall hooks; and so very many neat dogs (pugs, sheepdogs, mastiffs, whippets!) — is paired with a quivering psychological realism. Low-angle close-ups betray the fragility of Elinor’s self-composure when Edward tells her that he is engaged to another woman; and Marianne is a jittery bundle of broken idealism when she finds Willoughby arm-in-arm with a wealthy fiancé.

These lovers’ quarrels unfold with a touching sincerity to Roger Goula’s wistful score, though Oakley’s more grounded drama also feels oddly safe, with a seriousness of tone that strips away some of the wit and comedy that makes Austen’s work, well, Austenesque. And though players like Edgar-Jones and MacKay make for perfectly tender lovebirds, they don’t exactly breathe new life into their characters.

This might be the difference between being a gifted actor and a real star, which Lee’s “Sense and Sensibility” had across the board. Creed-Miles’ sharp-tongued, twinkle-eyed Marianne comes close to that inexplicable magnetism, though the script, which makes her sound like a broken record with the number of times she goes on about passion and passionate men, renders her a tad clichéd. In terms of casting, what Oakley’s “Sense and Sensibility” does confirm is that Dillane’s recent breakthrough was no fluke. His Willoughby is a slouching, smug-faced scoundrel — a rake all his own, and perhaps the only major presence in the film that brings an unstudied lightness and humor to this world of breath-held decorum.