2008 Sense and Sensibility - BBC TV
The 2008 versions of Sense and Sensibility - done as a long miniseries - has the luxury that movies do not. It can really go into all the intricate depths of the characters, to show more scenes, share more dialogue than a movie could. A movie has to fit a long thought into 10 seconds, where the miniseries can really explore the issue.
The movie starts right out with an almost-sex-scene, as if to say this is going to be a more rough, realistic view of how things could have happened.
It includes Henry, the little red-headed child of John Dashwood, which makes the money-grubbing of the wife at least a little more understandable :) There are lots of great little touches here - I love the carpet beating scene. While the Ang Lee version has Margaret fencing with Edward, in this one he rides around with her on his horse. Both are very sweet.
I love the touch of Elinor taking the painting of her house with them, and how that progresses. That's a really powerful image for me.
I like how the Marianne-Brandon relationship evolves differently here. She likes him pretty much from the start, but thinks of him as a good friend, "too old" she says (he's 35, she's 16) which makes sense. In the Ang Lee version she dismisses him from the start so the subsequent relationship is a bit harder to accept.
Marianne and Willoughby actually hit it off well, sharing ideas about Pope and Byron. Brandon shows up while Willoughby is right there, and they "face off" - Brandon bows out. They have an actual heated discussion later, where Willoughby says "I can't help it if she prefers me, since we're closer in age, in temperment ..." which is, after all, true. He takes her to "his mansion" to show it off and they actually kiss.
I like that in this version Willoughby actually says up front that he's going to talk with his aunt, then Marianne, then the mom. So he's not ignoring the mom's permission.
Right when the Dashwoods get to London, before anything else, Brandon shows up to ask about Marianne. Elinor explains that the pair are fond of each other. We get the classic "endeavor to deserve her" line. I love the party scene, where Marianne faints and Brandon is right there to catch her. Not only that, but there's an actual duel between the two men.
Jennings comes up with some port to reveal the info that Willoughby is marrying a woman with 50,000 pounds. I like the scene where Elinor downs the port in one swallow. Brandon comes to talk about the woman he loved (in the 1995 version this is told third had by someone else). Her 15 year old daughter was seduced by Willoughby and got pregnant. Elinor tells the whole story to Marianne. Home they go.
It's made more clear here that the Farrars mother has specific aims for her son, to marry a specific rich woman. I love the subsequent scene with Elinor, Lucy and Marianne. Then the harebrained sister tells all, and instantly the couple shows up - and are disowned. You get to see clearly that he will accept the loss of money - but that she won't.
I don't like Marianne's snippiness about "I guess you didn't care much about him."
They skip the Brandon offering a living - explaining that it's because of the divided love issue - and go right to Elinor offering it. I like how they stage them in two different windows.
I also like how they handled Marianne's illness, without the arm-slicing (of '95) but with the sense that she had almost died.
Willoughby shows up to ask for forgiveness - something not in the '95 version - and is told he's not welcome. He claims he was disowned by his aunt (because of the woman he seduced) so he had to find a rich wife in order to survive. Marianne overhears it all. The mother hears about Willoughby's events too.
I like how Marianne realizes that Willoughby talks about love - but Brandon shows his love through his actions.
When Marianne says she'll marry Brandon we get almost a P&P speech of "my feelings have changed so much ..."
I don't like how they handled the proposal scene for Edward. He says baldly "Robert got the money, so Lucy went to him" and then Margaret goes "OK so now you can marry Elinor." It's very sharp.
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