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Sense and Sensibility
1995 · Film · 136 min
Directed by Ang Lee
The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, learn that their prospects of marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. After Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son. These circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's wife and daughters without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.
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4 comments on Hacker News
You might be interested by Jane Austen's third most popular novel, "Sense and Sensibility", which has been adapted into TV series and movies several times, and favorably depicts a 17-year-old girl's romance with a colonel in his forties.
> Considering the astounding length and detail with which they were adapted, what more could he have possibly hoped for?
Not changing complex and interesting characters with boring Hollywood tropes (Denethor, Treebeard, Faramir)? Following Tolkein's carefully thought-out timeline of how and when and why things would have happened, rather than making every action scene a hollywood trope, where the bad guys can't hit anything and the good guys can't miss?
The best film adaptation of a book I've ever seen is the Sense and Sensibility adapted by Emma Thompson. You can't make a movie identical to a book; it doesn't work -- they're different art forms. Emma Thompson cut out big scenes, chopped out characters, and made a load of changes to make the situation more accessible to a modern audience -- but the heart of the story, and the character of the people in it, are true to the novel.
The movies jumped the shark for me when Faramir said he was going to "arrest" Frodo and bring him to Denethor. I watched the third film, but I'd emotionally checked out at that point.
As a young man of low social acumen I particularly benefitted from the TV/film adaptations. The best are faithful to Austen's texts and contain added knowledge from the actors and directors. For instance they show something of how the author's scenes might manifest in terms of speech tone and facial expression. My favourites are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice_(1995_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_Sensibility_(film)
What's really impressive is that he wasn't relegated to Asian or Asian-influenced films. He broke out with Sense and Sensibility, of all things.