Sense and Sensibility

A new Jane Austen adaptation is going to give you love, family and honor, repressed emotions and probably financial peril that can only be resolved through marriage. A new film version of Austen's Sense and Sensibility touches on those familiar themes with the Dashwood family, which include the two oldest sisters Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles). They are, in true Austen fashion, at the mercy of laws that deny widows and daughters financial security. But is this new film a sensible addition to Austen’s film canon? Looking for more buzzy adaptations? Check out these episodes: Truth is elusive in the erotic thriller ‘Verity’ https://www.npr.org/2026/10/05/nx-s1-5987804/truth-is-elusive-in-the-erotic-thriller-verity 'East of Eden' brings a light modern touch to an epic literary classic https://www.npr.org/2026/10/07/nx-s1-5992662/east-of-eden-brings-a-light-modern-touch-to-an-epic-literary-classic Should you test out ‘The Love Hypothesis’? https://www.npr.org/2026/09/28/nx-s1-5980098/should-you-test-out-the-love-hypothesis Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour: Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ / Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pchh Our weekly newsletter https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org http://plus.npr.org/. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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  My bottom line is, if your favorite Taylor Swift album is folklore, you will like this movie, and I did.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  A new Jane Austen adaptation is always going to give you love. It's going to give you family and honor, repressed emotions, and probably financial peril that can only be resolved through marriage. A new film version of Austen's Sense and Sensibility touches on those familiar themes with the help of a solid cast and some beautiful scenery. I'm Linda Holmes, and joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is the co-host of NPR's daily economics podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money, Wayland Wong. Hello, Wayland.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  Hi, Linda.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Also with us is NPR film critic Bob Mondello. Hello, Bob.

• 1:24Speaker 03

  Hey, it's so good to be here.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  It's so good to have you both here. Sense and Sensibility was Jane Austen's debut novel. It tells the story of the Dashwood family, made up of a widowed mother and three sisters. They are, in true Austen fashion, at the mercy of laws that deny widows and daughters financial security. The two oldest sisters are Eleanor, played by Daisy Edgar Jones, and Mary Ann, played by Esme Creed Miles. Eleanor meets and falls in love with the handsome and stoic Edward, while Mary Ann has her head turned by the dashing and roguish Willoughby.

• 1:58Speaker 04

  Mr. Willoughby, oh, but it is a fine name.

• 2:03Speaker 04

  Margaret, what happened? How did I fall? Did I look graceful? What did he look like? You were there. Did you not look? I did not. Why? Because you already had a picture in mind. His courage and spontaneity are as revealing as any portrait.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Willoughby is exactly the kind of man who never turns out to be a good idea in an Austen novel. But Mary Ann cannot see past him to the shy Colonel Brandon, who adores her from afar. Both sisters struggle to find happiness, but of course, you can be pretty confident they eventually will. The movie is in theaters now. Wayland, I'm going to start with you. How did you like Sense and Sensibility?

• 2:39Speaker 02

  I had a lovely time. I really liked this adaptation. And I say this as someone who's-- one of my favorite movies is the 1995 Ang Lee film. I went in with an open mind, but curious to see whether kind of both could coexist happily in my pop culture diet. And I had a great time. Like, this movie has a much more kind of wild quality to it. The women are tromping around in the countryside. Their petticoats are muddy. They're getting grubby in the garden. There's a lot of like wild animals and dogs and stuff like that. So I thought the look of it was really cool. And I think that there's a subset of Austenites

• 3:22Speaker 02

  who always are very concerned with wardrobe and makeup and styling and whether details are exactly period accurate. I am not one of those Austenites. I care a lot more about whether the vibes are there, whether the emotions are there, and whether I like feel all the things I want to feel from an Austen adaptation. And I think this movie really delivered. I really loved the relationship between the sisters. I thought the yearning in this film was top tier.

• 3:55Speaker 04

  I cannot deny that I think very highly of him. You think highly of him. That I like him, that I greatly esteem. Like him?

• 4:05Speaker 04

  Eleanor, use those words again. I shall leave the room.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  My bottom line is, if your favorite Taylor Swift album is folklore, you will like this movie, and I did.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  I will take that to be a message that will make total sense to fans of folklore. Bob, what did you think? And I-- listen, Bob and I were at this movie together. We talked a little bit about it, but what did you think of it, Bob?

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Well, I spent half of it trying to figure out what the female gaze would do to this film. Because the 1995 version, though it was written by Emma Thompson, was directed by Ang Lee. And I thought maybe the-- this version, which is both written and directed by women, would bring something else. And I said that coming out, remember, Linda? And I didn't really see something that was dramatic. And I thought your take on it was kind of better than mine. I have been thinking a lot about it since. And all of the things that Wayland was just talking about, yes, absolutely. It is-- it's kind of not gritty or exactly, because it's such a sweet story. It doesn't feel gritty.

• 5:08Speaker 03

  But it's-- it is sort of more down to earth than the previous version was. And I like that about the film. I thought it's also faster paced. I went back and watched portions of the 1995 version and was struck by how decorous it is and how you're forever looking at rooms rather than at people. And this one doesn't make you do that. I got really involved with it. What I found intriguing was, I have to say, just sort of generally, that when I look at a Jane Austen movie, they all blend in my head. They're all basically the same story, which is not fair to them. I'm aware of that. But I do find myself puzzling out, okay, which is-- is this the story

• 5:51Speaker 03

  where in The Last Reel he'll, you know, and that kind of thing?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It does have a lot of story beats in common, particularly with Pride and Prejudice. And you know, it sounds like damning with faint praise when I say, I just thought this movie was lovely and nicely done. I think people may be wondering if there is some dramatic new angle or some change to the story or tone that they're trying to discover. I don't think that's true compared to other Austen adaptations. I think the differences are a little bit more, just like Wayland said, in tone. I think the tone might feel a little bit more, on the one hand, I think, down to earth, like Wayland said is exactly right, but also in a way, a little more subdued. I think it's a little more emo than maybe the 1995 Emma Thompson version is,

• 6:39Speaker 01

  in the same way that I think the Joe Wright Pride and Prejudice was more emo than the British television Jennifer Ely and Colin Firth version, which I think played up the lightness of the story a bit more. I think this one sits a little bit more with the sadness of the situation that these people are in. You know, Austen is always interested in this matter of women and money. And I think that she allows in this story for that to be a sad and difficult thing and for the sisters and their mom to kind of feel that sense of, oh, we have no control over our lives.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  And the idea of marrying for love becomes a way to exert some agency over your life.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think in the scene where the Dashwood family has to move into this tiny little cottage out in the country, which is like their only option for housing, you see how shabby the cottage is, you know? And there's that scene where they're all kind of staring at it. And they're like, oh, maybe it's not so bad. But then you realize this is such a step down from their previous circumstances. And I do think that contrast is something you don't see in the Ang Lee, where you-- you know, they talk about the dire financial straits they're in, but they're still kind of in these pretty drawing rooms. And so you don't get that sense of like, they are really taking, taking a hit in terms of their status and their lifestyle.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. We've got more thoughts about Sense and Sensibility after the break.

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• 9:38Speaker 01

  Welcome back. Bob, I want to pick up with you. What are you thinking about?

• 9:42Speaker 03

  You guys know these novels better than I do. I was surprised to discover that the 1995 version, it was only 20 years into versions of the film, right? I mean, the first time this was done by a major film studio, it was done on television in the 1970s, which seems late to me. And I wondered, why was Pride and Prejudice something that they did back in the 1940s?

• 10:05Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  And this one not?

• 10:07Speaker 01

  That's a great question. I think there are just books that people fall in love with. And I mean, I just don't have the direct knowledge to answer what you're asking. But I think there was definitely this stretch of time when you got that really beloved BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which so cleverly led to Colin Firth also being in Bridget Jones' Diary.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  And you saw the 1995 version of Sense and Sensibility. You saw the Gwyneth Paltrow adaptation of Emma.

• 10:36Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  So there was this moment where I think Austin was getting adapted a lot, and people were being really playful about it and doing different things with it. And then I feel like it's sort of settled down a little bit. And the thing that's interesting is there's also a pending Netflix adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, where, and it feels perhaps inevitable, that Olivia Colman is playing the mother, which kind of feels like, you know, destiny, right? And these stories definitely, it's so interesting to me that she was writing these stories based on what I know of Jane Austen. She was writing these stories when she was maybe 20-ish, such a young person.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  And really, I think, preoccupied by feelings about how do you end up kind of stuck in your circumstances because of your finances, but also because of your family? Because the other thing that you see a lot in these stories is family members who are either really good to you and really loving to you, or who are really frustrating and hold you back, you know, because of your family or your family's reputation, you may be held back from being able to live the life you want. And I always think it's interesting that she was able, at that age, to write these books in a way that is still resonant for people as to those really fundamental themes about seeking happiness.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  I think in modern Austen adaptations, you often have to fudge the ages. Otherwise, it would be really hard to swallow. Because, for example, in the novel, I think Mary Ann is something like 16.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  16, I think.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  And Colonel Brandon is like 35, which just makes your stomach turn. And I guess if you truly depicted a 16-year-old and a 30-something.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  And you used a 16-year-old actress.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. You would be like, what am I watching? This is a crime. So I think there is some amount of fudging that needs to happen.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  And I think that when Emma Thompson played Eleanor in 1995, you got a sense of, and I use this word advisedly, you got a sense of kind of desperation because she's a bit older. You get a sense of she really needs to find somebody and get married, and/or she has kind of wasted a chunk of her life pining for this man, who in that film is played by Hugh Grant.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Being in love with him and not being able to marry him. It comes out a little differently. I think it would come out differently, differently, if it were really a sort of what we would think of as like a college-age woman, right? A 20-ish woman. And I think with Daisy Edgar Jones, you get something in between where the way they play it is sort of, she doesn't urgently, urgently have to get married, but it would really help her to get married, and it would help the family for her to get married. And as I was saying, you know, I think the interesting tension in these stories is always, on the one hand, marriage is the only way of achieving financial security for women.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  And even for the girl's mother, the financial security she had when she was married is gone when her husband dies. So I think that the fact that women are so financially precarious in these stories, the really interesting sleight of hand is to still make getting married feel romantic, right? Feel magical, even though it kind of feels like something that you have to do, whether you want to or not.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  If you want to eat or not eat, yeah.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  If you want to eat, if you want to have a place to live. And, you know, Waylon talked about this kind of demotion in their status and in the kind of home they're living in, and being sort of cut out because everything inherits through sons rather than daughters.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  The really rich people in this are all played sort of obnoxiously, right?

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Oh, they're awful.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're terrible. But I also, I realized that, I'm looking at this today through a different lens than I was in 1995. And I think I just took an instant dislike to the whole milieu and was kind of relieved when they were among people who seemed more normal. I mean, they seemed garishly normal. Fiona Shaw is playing that friend of the family as just.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, she's so funny, Mrs. Jennings.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  She's so funny. But, you know, they seemed like real people in their circumstances. I mean, they were kind of rude around the table and that kind of thing, but they were, they seemed real in a way that these other folks didn't. And I was relieved.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I really liked Fiona Shaw as Mrs. Jennings. I think she was actually my stealth favorite in this movie. And I'm realizing that, kind of as I age myself, I have a lot more kind of sympathy and kinship towards these characters who are kind of played up as nosey, slightly annoying busybodies in the Austen world, right? And I think there's a lot of like Mrs. Jennings hate out there because it's like, oh, this lady can't stop meddling and she's always around. But there's this line in the script I really liked where Mrs. Jennings says something like, "Well, I've already married off both of my daughters, so I have nothing left to do but marry off you guys." And I really liked that because it speaks to exactly this thing Linda's talking about,

• 16:08Speaker 02

  that in this era, women are given basically no agency and no choices. They're completely circumscribed and constrained by the social milieu, which is that you have to marry otherwise. And like, you have nothing else to do in your whole life, other than get married and like, secure your stability. And so Mrs. Jennings is like, doing the only thing that like, a woman of her age and place in society is able to do, which is to try to secure the financial stability of people that she cares about. And she does care deeply about these characters. And like, she mentions like, trying to pull together like furniture and food for other people in her life, you know? So I am like, Team Mrs. Jennings all the way. In a way, I wasn't maybe like, back in 95, when I first met that character.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Right, sure, absolutely. I'm glad that you mentioned Fiona Shaw, who I think is so good and so funny in this, and finds a kind of expansive, big-hearted way to play this meddling woman where she, it's clear how good her intentions are. And I will say, not to keep bringing this up, but in this upcoming Netflix, Pride and Prejudice, Fiona Shaw is playing Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who's the unpleasantly meddling older lady, who was played by Judi Dench in the Joe Wright movie. You know, actresses of a, as we would say, certain age have, I guess, their meddling Jane Austen aunt or grandma moment. And I'm just delighted for her because those are really different characters.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  And she, of course, as you would expect, is wonderful as both.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  Well, she's just so great, anyway. I mean, in everything from Killing Eve to, I mean, she's a sublime actress.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  I think the whole cast here does really well. I think Daisy Edgar Jones is one of those actresses who can play, you know, big, but can also play small. And I think she mostly plays Eleanor quite small. I think the most famous scene in the Ang Lee version is sort of the Hugh Grant coming in and Emma Thompson sort of having this very big emotional reaction, which is so touching and so sweet. But it is big, right? It is a big kind of over-the-top reaction, which is appropriate to the tone of that movie. You do get, I think, a little bit more of a subdued, but still very, very happy reaction in that same scene. And it's just different. And that's what I mean when I say, does this movie need to exist?

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Probably not, but most movies don't need to exist. Most movies are not made to fill a need. They are made to entertain and to offer, even if it's a familiar story. You know, if you can keep making Hamlet, and you can keep making Lord of the Flies and all that kind of stuff, there's no reason you can't keep making Sense and Sensibility. And it feels totally appropriate to me to try this with a different, I agree with Waylon, somewhat more like, kind of organic and dirty feel to it, which I think is probably more true to the way these people lived. You know, people got their clothes dirty and, you know, it was a different kind of life. But I really enjoyed it. I think it's absolutely worth seeing. And it's the kind of thing.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Let's have period romance, man.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, please.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Let's have theater-scale period romance, because we should.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  I think a question that people might have is, do I need to see this on the big screen, or should I just wait until I can get it on streaming or VOD? And this, I think, will be one of these movies that I will just happily pop on as like a comfort watch at home.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  But I actually loved seeing it on the big screen, not just because of the big landscapes, you know, and like the scene where Margaret and Mary Ann like run towards the ocean and they're frolicking. That like, that's really nice to see kind of blown up on the big screen. But there's incredible texture. Like, I found myself like admiring the quilted texture on their bonnets, and they do look really homemade. And I think seeing it on the big screen is actually like a very lovely way to spend an afternoon. And I will say that at the end of the movie, the woman next to me sighed contentedly. Like, that was just like the reaction she had when the credits started rolling. And I was like, yes, that's such a nice feeling to have.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  It's a sighing, contentedly kind of movie.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  I agree wholeheartedly. I did think while I was watching, you know, the fact of it being big, at the very beginning of the film, Mary Ann is lying in the grass, and they have just shown you a picture, I can't remember if it was a butterfly or a bee or something like that, that was buzzing around. And I started thinking about all the bugs and that there were, it's big and, oh, my gosh, she's going to get ticks. She should get up.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 20:41Speaker 03

  You know, so there is a, there's a quality of life to this. I didn't get that anywhere in the 1995 version. I just never felt that, right?

• 20:52Speaker 01

  I think that's the same thing Wayland is talking about, this almost like, I hesitate to use the word organic, because it feels sort of generic. But there is a more kind of close to the, to the earth. The particular way in which this movie is tactile, I'm pretty sure I noticed in that very same shot, Bob, that very first shot of Mary Ann, that she, that her fingernails are dirty, which of course they would be.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  I noticed dirty fingernails in other scenes, too.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Which, which of course they would be, right? And when I notice things like that, I always think, yeah, OK, they're, they're telling you that this person, this is a person who lives in the world.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  And I think, I, I think I liked how that, how that played out here.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  There's also this recurring gag with, I think it's Mrs. Jennings's son-in-law, or it's someone who keeps bringing over food for them that he's just hunted. So he keeps slapping dead birds down on their kitchen table. And it's almost like a little, it's like a bit, you know? And I kind of appreciated that, too. It's subtle, but it's like, yeah, they're like living off the land, you know?

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree. Well, I think we all found things to enjoy quite a bit about this film. That brings us to the end of our show. Wayland Wong, Bob Mandello, thank you so much for being here.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  This was great.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  This episode is produced by J.C. Howard, Huff Saphathama, Lennon Sherburne, and Mike Cassiff, and it was edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we will see you all next time.

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