Sense and Sensibility review: This moody, modern Austen is just what the new gen is yearning for

With a ghastly laugh and a slumbering pug curled up in her lap, Mrs Jennings (Fiona Shaw) teases sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood about marriage. Such is life for the two young women of Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility, and such it must be until they each find a husband.Elinor, the sensible eldest sister, is played here by Daisy Edgar-Jones, who is as soulful and expressive as ever. Opposite her, Esmé Creed-Miles brings a magnetic rawness to her portrayal of the passionate Marianne, while Hamnet’s Bodhi Rae Breathnach plays their younger sister, 13-year-old Margaret, who likes to eat blackberries and complain about her sisters’ suitors.Forced to leave their Sussex estate after the death of their patriarch, the Dashwood family move to a modest cottage in Devon. There, Elinor inwardly pines for Edward Ferrars (a pensive George MacKay), whom she left back in Sussex, while Marianne falls for the dashing John Willoughby (a charming but creepy Frank Dillane) and is oblivious to the feelings harboured by the solemn, older Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum). Encounters with the nosy Mrs Jennings (Shaw is an absolute hoot) and many comical side characters provide some welcome belly laughs, while the sisterly dynamic pushes and pulls at the film’s beating heart.Bodhi Rae Breathnach as Margaret Dashwood, Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor Dashwood and George MacKay as Edward FerrarsFocus Features LLC/Alex BaileyOakley takes a loose and earthy approach: the sisters lie in fields, run through forests and wear their hair down (not at all in the style of the time period or of Ang Lee’s beloved 1995 version). That film, of course, starred Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman, and while theirs are pretty big shoes to fill, this new cast manages it with ease. MacKay, for example, is a more reserved Edward compared to Hugh Grant’s bumbling, floppy-haired version, and conveys such longing for Edgar-Jones’s similarly reserved Elinor. Assisted by Roger Goula’s swoony, stirring score, the film is a hopeless romantic’s dream. Things are moody and at times almost Brontë-esque thanks to Arnaud Potier’s autumnal cinematography and the rolling, rain-lashed hills.To be clear, this is a film about yearning, determined to bring Jane Austen to a young generation obsessed with it. Small changes to the plot are even made to facilitate this. Whether it’s Conrad in The Summer I Turned Pretty, Ilya and Shane in Heated Rivalry, or even the decaying and putrid Count Orlok in Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu, internet-dwelling Gen Z simply love characters who “yearn”. So, who better to turn to than the maestro of yearning herself? For all its modernity, the spirit of the book is alive and well in her lush frames and stellar cast Oakley’s film will delight younger audiences, but I think she’ll still win over open-minded Austen fans, too. For all its modernity, the spirit of the book is alive and well in her lush frames and stellar cast.In 1995, we had Sense and Sensibility, the definitive adaptation of Persuasion and the BBC’s legendary Pride and Prejudice series with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. Now, with a new Netflix Pride and Prejudice on the horizon and this delightful addition to the list of adaptations, Austen lives on even in our senseless times.