TL;DR: Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility is a lush, emotionally rich Austen adaptation built around a brilliant sister bond, with a standout Esmé Creed-Miles. It plays it safe, but it’s the best Austen film since 2005’s Pride and Prejudice.
Every few years someone brings Jane Austen back to the big screen. Fans get excited and nervous at the same time, a bit like waiting on the next Zelda trailer. Sense and Sensibility was the novel that launched Austen’s career, and the bar is high: Ang Lee’s 1995 film still holds a near-sacred place in period drama history. So I approached Georgia Oakley’s version, only her second feature after Blue Jean, with my arms crossed. By the end of its 132 minutes I’d uncrossed them. This Sense and Sensibility movie review comes down to one idea: the film doesn’t reinvent Austen, but it understands her well enough that it doesn’t need to.
Oakley and screenwriter Diana Reid tighten the story and freshen it for modern viewers. You can see it in the costumes, the hair and makeup, and the extra wit given to characters who could easily have been cardboard cutouts in bonnets. The plot hasn’t changed. The Dashwood women lose their comfortable life at Norland Park and are pushed into reduced circumstances, where love and money become uncomfortably tangled. What has changed is how alive everything feels. It reads less like a museum piece and more like a story about people who happen to wear long gloves.
Elinor and Marianne are the real love story here
Romance gets the poster, but the beating heart of this adaptation is the relationship between the two sisters. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Elinor, the composed sister who swallows her feelings for everyone else’s sake. Esmé Creed-Miles plays Marianne, who feels everything at full volume and sees no reason to apologise for it. Think of a co-op game where one player plans every move and the other charges in swinging, and you get the dynamic. They argue and judge each other’s choices, and they push each other’s buttons with real precision. When things fall apart, though, they close ranks instantly, and that loyalty gives the film far more emotional weight than any ballroom glance.
The film builds this contrast visually as well as through dialogue, which is where Oakley’s direction shines. Elinor’s scenes tend to be still and contained. Her first proper conversation with Edward Ferrars (George MacKay) happens over skipping stones beside a pond, quiet and private, with both of them circling what they can’t say. Marianne, by contrast, sprints through woodland and throws herself into country dances. She runs straight into Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum) on horseback and simply bolts rather than introduce herself. These choices tell you everything about the sisters before either one explains herself, which is exactly how good screen adaptation should work.
Cinematography and score that make the countryside feel like a character
Arnaud Potier’s cinematography is lush without turning into a postcard slideshow. The camera lets moments breathe, settling on landscapes and on small domestic beats long enough for you to sink into them. The move from the gentle Sussex surroundings of Norland Park to the wind-battered, working farmland around Barton Cottage in Devonshire is handled like a visual gut punch. It tells you how far the family has fallen without anyone needing to spell it out. London’s crowded streets and glittering parties then add a third texture, so each setting has its own mood, almost like distinct biomes in an open-world game.
Roger Goula’s score leans into big emotions where Marianne is concerned, and that’s the right call for her. When the story reaches its most heartbroken stretch, the music swells in a way that could feel overdone in another film but suits a character who experiences life at maximum intensity. Fans of Joe Wright’s 2005 Pride and Prejudice will feel instant recognition here. Sweeping visuals and a soundtrack carry inner feelings the characters are too polite to voice. It’s the closest thing to that film’s mood I’ve seen in an Austen adaptation since.
The money problem Austen never let us forget
What impressed me most is that Oakley never lets the prettiness hide the stakes. For women of this period, losing the men of the household could mean losing security altogether, and marriage was as much a survival strategy as a romantic goal. The film doesn’t soften that. Elinor and Marianne aren’t just hoping for love, they need a good match to live decently, and that pressure sits under every flirtation and every dance. It gives the romance a tension that pure swooning never could.
This balance is harder than it looks. Lean too far into economics and you get a dry lecture, lean too far into romance and you lose what makes Austen sharp. Oakley holds both in the same frame, so a quiet woodland walk can be beautiful and anxious at once. It’s a reminder that Austen wrote social commentary disguised as courtship stories. The film respects that instead of turning it into a costume-party fantasy.
Sense and Sensibility cast: Creed-Miles steals the show
Creed-Miles gives the standout performance in the Sense and Sensibility cast. Marianne can be naive and theatrical, and a weaker actor would make her exhausting. Creed-Miles plays her sincerity so honestly that you root for her even when you want to shake her. Her chemistry with both Frank Dillane’s Willoughby and Nordrum’s Brandon makes her romantic triangle the most gripping thread in the film. Edgar-Jones has the harder, quieter role, and she’s strongest opposite Creed-Miles, where their warmth makes the sisterhood feel real. Her scenes with MacKay simmer with everything unsaid.
The supporting players are a treat. Fiona Shaw’s loud, big-hearted Mrs. Jennings plays matchmaker and protector at once, and she walks off with nearly every scene. Turlough Convery is a surprising comic highlight as the boisterous John Middleton, alongside Chloe Pirrie’s Lady Middleton. The weak spot is Caitriona Balfe’s Mrs. Dashwood. The character is written as dreamy and romantic as Marianne but never makes much impression, and Shaw ends up feeling more like the girls’ mother figure. That’s a thin role, not a poor performance, but it’s noticeable.
Verdict
This Sense and Sensibility review lands firmly on the positive side. Oakley’s adaptation is gorgeous, emotionally sharp and anchored by a sister relationship that feels genuinely lived-in. The visuals and score give it scale, while the attention to money and survival gives it bite. Creed-Miles is outstanding, Edgar-Jones holds her ground, and Shaw is a scene-stealing joy. The downsides are that it plays things safe and Mrs. Dashwood is underwritten. Viewers hoping for a radical reinterpretation won’t find one. If you love Austen, adored Wright’s Pride and Prejudice, or simply want an elegant, heartfelt period romance in cinemas, this is an easy recommendation.
