Sense and Sensibility (2008)
I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way. - Elinor Dashwood
Volume I Chapter 17 Page 90 of my edition in this boxed set
Icons by disneygirl89 in this post. I finished watching the 2008 miniseries today. Hattie Morahan is Elinor Dashwood. If I can be honest, as much as I love Sense and Sensibility 1995 (leaving Netflix Canada at the end of the month), I feel like Emma Thompson was too old for the role. According to my calculation, she would have been 36. Kate Winslet (who placed Marianne in the 1995 movie), was only 19. (Elinor was 19 in the book, Marianne was probably a year or two younger). So Hattie would have been a bit to old as well - she would have been 29 for S&S 2008, and Charity Wakefield (Marianne Dashwood) would have been 27. The miniseries is nice because there are some actual quotes from the book in the dialogue, such as: "Exert yourself, dear Marianne" (Volume II Chapter 29, page 176). And there are some nice added touches. The duel between Colonel Brandon and Willoughby (not in the book). The gift of the horse ("When you leave Barton to form your own establishment in a more lasting home, Queen Mab shall receive you.” Volume I Chapter 12, page 60.) This is a very small miniseries (only 3 episodes long), but it summarizes the book really well. They do change the ending slightly, so that it is more satisfying for the viewer. Willoughby comes to talk to Elinor and explain himself (as he does in the book), but unlike in the book he talks about how his Aunt disinherited him and that his wife hates him. Marianne overhears the conversation. So it is satisfying that Marianne gets some closure, and that Willoughby is cut off, and that his wife detests him. This was not the case in the book. At the end of the novel, Jane Austen says that Willoughby had a perfectly content life, although he did think of Marianne with regret and sometimes envy. I can understand though, that Sense and Sensibility is one of Jane Austen's most unsatisfying novels. That Willoughby faces no consequences for what he has done to Marianne and Eliza, that Marianne ends up married to a man who is twice her age, and that none of the men in the book are handsome, except for Willoughby. But I like the novel. It's a lot more peaceful than Pride and Prejudice. Very relaxing to read.