Sense and Sensibility (Special Edition) (1995)

Rolling Stone
"...A terrifically entertaining and incisively acted film of Jane Austen's first novel....Thompson gives a marvelous performance to match the elegant fire of her writing..." 12/28/1995 p.139

Sight and Sound
"...Enjoyable..." 03/01/1996 p.50-1

Entertainment Weekly
"...Lushly engaging....Luminously brings to life Austen's vision..." -- Rating: B 01/19/1996 p.40

Variety
"...Witty and rollicking....Rickman is unexpectedly moving....Jones quietly impresses....Francois is utterly winning..." 12/04/1995

Los Angeles Times
"...Proof to any doubters of the resilience and continuing emotional power of an author who began writing 200 years ago..." 12/13/1995 p.F1

Sneak Previews 0 of 10
4 stars. A gorgeous and glorious triumph. Wonderfully witty, stunningly beautiful, and richly satisfying...anyone with either sense or sensibility will recognize that this is one of the finest films of the year! - Michael Medved
 
Rolling Stone 0 of 10
One of the 10 best pictures of the year. Georgous filmmaking. A terrifically entertaining and incisively acted film... Thompson gives a marvelous performance to match the elegant fire of her writing. Kate Winslet is stunningly good. - Peter Travers
 
ReelViews 9 of 10
It's a curious thing that the best 1995 adaptation of a Jane Austen book happens to be of her worst novel. Sense and Sensibility was the author's first published work and, as is often the case with early writing efforts, displays an undeniable shallowness: themes are half-developed, characterization is uneven, and plotting follows a predictable straight-forwardness. Austen's later books, including Persuasion, which was developed into a wonderfully sumptuous film earlier this year, and Emma, which received unusual treatment in Clueless, plumb the human soul far more deeply, creating characters and situations of greater versatility and vitality...The novel's flaws guarantee that Sense and Sensibility cannot be a perfect motion picture, but it would be difficult, I think, to do much better with the material than Emma Thompson and director Ang Lee (Eat Drink Man Woman) have here. With more Jane Austen on the way (versions of Pride and Prejudice and Emma), it's still too early to say which adaptation will stand out as the best, but Sense and Sensibility makes a strong case. - James Berardinelli
 
Chicago Sun-Times 7 of 10
"Sense and Sensibility" is an enjoyable film, and yet it left me somehow unsatisfied. I liked the wit, I liked the charm of the actors, I enjoyed the way that Rickman chewed his role as if he wanted to make it last, and the tension when Grant's Edward is made to suffer - particularly since he appears to be a cad only because he has tried to do the right thing. And I appreciated the way Thompson's Elinor kept her character's face carefully expressionless as she negotiated scenes in which some knew her secrets and others did not...Yet the film is not told as tightly or as well as "Persuasion," the wonderful Austen adaptation released earlier in 1995. Austen was not yet a great novelist when she wrote this story, and there is too much contrivance in the way she dispatches her men to London when she is done with them. Edward is offscreen so long that instead of growing concerned about his absence, we forget him...The production suffers from comparison with "Persuasion" because the earlier film looked simpler and more authentic, and this one seems a little too idealized; we want note paper, not picture postcards. "Sense and Sensibility" is entertaining and amusing, but "Persuasion" is the one true Jane Austen lovers will prefer. - Roger Ebert