Three and a half stars out of four
Jane Austen’s beloved Sense and Sensibility has been subject to many adaptations over the years, perhaps most famously the Oscar-winning 1995 film starring Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson. Longtime fans would be forgiven for thinking that sublime version of Austen’s world simply can’t be topped. They would be wrong.
Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility (in theaters beginning October 16) follows the down-on-their-luck Dashwood sisters: practical Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and romantic, flighty Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles).
When their father dies, their mother (Outlander’s Caitríona Balfe) makes it clear that they must marry well — and quickly — to help save the family from financial ruin. Enter some very charming suitors. This swoony, beautiful Sensibility does so many things right: The men (including George MacKay and Herbert Nordrum) are appropriately repressed yearners; the English countryside views are stunning; and Fiona Shaw is a downright hoot as a meddling aunt, making a meal out of literally every one of her lines.
Thanks to Diana Reid’s perceptive script, this surprisingly funny film manages to find new dimensions in these well-loved characters, placing greater emphasis on the relationship between the very different sisters than on their respective love interests. (Don’t fear: There’s, duh, still plenty of romance!)
This wistful take on the sisters has much to say about girlhood and coming into one’s own. Edgar-Jones and especially Creed-Miles are excellent as two young women discovering their place in a confusing world. Period dramas can be tricky, but both actresses seamlessly fill out a long-ago world that never rings false. It’s a pleasure to see an adaptation that feels both faithful to Austen and refreshingly its own. The film will remind fans why the Dashwood sisters’ journey through love and sisterhood continues to resonate over 200 years later.
Look out, Austen aficionados: You may just have a new favorite on your hands.
Here’s what other critics had to say about 2026’s Sense and Sensibility:
IndieWire: “While the latest Sense and Sensibility requires the test of time to reveal its endurance when stacked against Ang Lee’s canon-defining 1995 film, Austen fans will be pleased here. As will, hopefully, those new to her exactingly drawn characters and setting that may reflect our own contemporary gestures at true love and smooth courtship, but Oakley never impresses too much of the modern on a well-wrought, classic story.”
The Guardian: “The scene-stealer is the mischievous, gossipy and forthright Mrs Jennings, marvellously played by Fiona Shaw, who brings up the voltage every time she comes on and effectively makes of it a far bigger role than Elizabeth Spriggs in the same part in 1995. Overall, the movie always looks and sounds perfectly good, though some of the sensibility is lacking.”
Roger Ebert: “More than anything else, Sense and Sensibility is a physical film: corporeal, organic, and implied. Oakley’s direction, bolstered by Arnaud Potier’s cinematography, turns berry-stained dresses, sweeping landscapes, and long hair and skirts billowing as they run through the woods (sometimes indulgent, other times escapist) into impressionist moments.”
