Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility is gorgeous as a tone poem, funny as a period drama, and ends as sweet as a nap on an autumn afternoon. But what makes it a romance?

It’s often said that film adaptations may not be ‘faithful’ to their source. However, there is not much I have to say about the plot—I have never read Austen’s book!—and this review is about how the film expresses itself to the students of 2026.

It’s also often said that period dramas can have stifling, pretentious lines and be quite predictable. Yet from the get-go, the film’s Dashwood sisters bicker with each other like children. Piano music carries a scene softly and then crashes as we realise that the pianist is really ‘inside’ the film and is crashing out with frustration. Fiona Shaw’s Mrs. Jennings later steals the show with her rambunctious laughter.

It is a validation of those who endeavour to take fun and social connections seriously.

This is not to say that the film does not take itself, its characters, or its audience seriously. Rather, the film does take its characters seriously as human beings, like modern people that we in the audience may personally know. It is a validation of those who endeavour to take fun and social connections seriously, even despite the rigid social climate of Georgian Britain where a man’s money defines family fortunes—or perhaps the same disillusioning haze that defines too much of today’s world.

The first part of the film is my favourite, for the earthy ease with which the Dashwoods live among the greenery of their old home. Beyond dialogue, and beyond how the actors lend credence to the volatility and vulnerabilities of their characters, emotions are reflected in the cinematography, rich with colour and the glorious sun of the English countryside. The happiest sequences are found amidst the grass and trees.

However, the love evident in the beauty here may have more to do with a romanticised idea of home rather than romantic love itself.

The pacing is as fast as heartbeats go, and the audience is forced alongside the Dashwoods to leave their old home. Though the sisters seek the reassurance of romance, the gentlest and most intimate moments of the film are not between lovers, but between the sisters themselves.

This is precisely what makes this film a romance.

Romantic love aside, there is certainly the romantic ideal of hills and quills, or halls and balls, inherent to all anachronistic period dramas that seem like simply escapism. But the motif of losing one’s home and having only a few other souls to rely on is surely a perennial one. And this film’s resolution, and reassurance, is that Elinor and Marianne are saved by each other.

The love evident in the beauty here may have more to do with a romanticised idea of home rather than romantic love itself.

Sense and Sensibility‘s title suggests a great divide between these two sisters, between the folly of overthinking and the folly of obsessive passion. However, I have not noticed a great cinematographic difference between the two; they are more alike than different. Rather, these sisters can be seen to carry the contrast of being more careful and more carefree. Both of these are romantic virtues; in this modern world, we are in need of both.

Perhaps we could all learn to do the brave and noble thing of firing your shot into the sky, awaiting whatever may come next.

The filmmakers have done that successfully. The audience is invited to not only see the characters’ lives but also feel their emotions. The lines are naturalistic with humour, the lighting is generous, and cinema is saved…

The DCA on Perth Road is now screening Sense and Sensibility every day until 15th October.