SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

After two hundred years, Jane Austen has become one of the popular screenwriters in Hollywood. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, her latest screen adaptation, opens with a deathbed request: Mr. Dashwood asks his son provide for his second family who, according to the laws at that time, could not inherit. Son John is beaten down and convinced otherwise by his avaricious wife Fanny. Thus, he finally decides to give his stepmother and her three daughters, Eleanor, Marianne and Margaret, merely a small yearly stipend. However, Mrs. Dashwood’s relative Lord Middleton comes to her aid and invites her daughters to live in a cottage on his estate. Lord Middleton and his mother-in-law Mrs. Jennings take a strong interest in marrying off the girls. Complications in love arise, but eventually, all ends well as prudence, honor and duty triumph over sensibilities.

With no more violence that a twisted ankle, no more nudity than an exposed foot and no more sex than the snipping of a lock of hair, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY communicates the depth of human emotions and the reasons why virtue will triumph over moral degradation. On the surface, this is a pleasant comedy of manners, but its character studies run deep into the heart of the laws of the universe and the divine Providence which governs in the affairs of men.