Though reluctant to admit it, I am a fan of period English films, and I had a pretty good run watching most of the Austen films that seem to come out every other year, but when offered this DVD, I hestitated (especially after watching the tiresome, Jane Austen Book Club). I am so very glad I took this DVD home. It is lovely, and the setting of the Dahswood girls' cottage on the Devonshire coast is such a perfect setting, not only for a beautiful location, but also as a great metaphor for how easily women were able to lose their position in a staid and narrow-minded English society of the late 1800's. That is really what I found most intriguing and watchable in this version, the society that traps the girls, not only in their cottage, but in their choice of what is a suitable husband. The politics of Sense and Sensibility are not swept under the carpet in this production.

Sense and Sensibility is essentially the tale of the Dashwood sisters, Eleanor, 19, and Marianne, 16. When we meet the girls, their father has just died, and as their mother was the second wife of their propertied father, the estate and everything that goes along with it goes to an older half-brother. And with their father's death, the girls and their mother and much younger sister are forced to rely on the kindness of strangers; as their half-brother, though he means well, and despite having promised his father on his deathbed to look after them, is coerced by his status-grubbing wife to give them what amounts to zilch. The Dashwoods are then convinced to move away to a cottage on the estate of a cousin they have never met. Such was the precarious existence of well-to-do ladies that somehow never think to get a job and support themselves. Ah, I am being harsh, as their best bet is to marry rich men, and thus save their little family.

Austen books/films are all about marrying the right guy on the surface. And usually, you and the female characters are thrown for a loop during the process of landing a man. What I love about this version of S&S is that one) it is a bit longer than the standard two-hour feature film and can spend the needed amount of time to explore not only the romances, but the whole societal mechanism; and two) that appropriate actors are cast for roles that call for young men and women. Don't get me wrong, I love Emma Thompson, but she was far too old to play Eleanor Dashwood in the 1995 version.

Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility had some scenes that I had never seen in a previous version, and having not read the book (always seemed a bit girly, although this version has me putting it on my summer reading list), I just assumed that no one else had ever included these particular scenes. But watching the interview with Andrew Davies, the screenwriter, it became clear that Mr. Davies had invented some scenes, that totally fit into the text of the film/story/original source. My hat goes off to him. I am not sure who's idea it was to stretch this version out to almost three hours, but it was effective as the story was fleshed out so well as to bring out the real message of this tale.

And finally, top-notch casting! Every character is full and three-dimensional, and every actor really embodied the character they were portraying. Claire Skinner plays the awful half-sister-in-law and her tight little face is perfect for her tight little character. Same with Charity Wakefield as Marianne. She has a sensual face that belies her sensual and impulsive behaviour.

This may sound like a cliche, but I really didn't want it to end.