MOVIE NEWS – Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility may be more than two centuries old, but Daisy Edgar-Jones believes Elinor and Marianne Dashwood’s struggles could easily belong to the present day. Georgia Oakley’s new adaptation remains visually grounded in 1810s England while approaching the sisters, their obligations and their suppressed emotions from a distinctly 2026 perspective.

Daisy Edgar-Jones, known for Normal People and Twisters, plays the rational and dutiful Elinor Dashwood, while Esmé Creed-Miles takes the role of her more free-spirited sister Marianne. Diana Reid’s screenplay certainly retains the romance at the heart of Austen’s novel, but it places more emphasis than earlier adaptations on the complicated relationship between the sisters themselves. Rather than defining them primarily through whom they fall in love with, the film is also interested in how two very different women find their place inside a society that has rigid expectations for both of them.

Edgar-Jones felt particularly connected to Elinor because the character constantly tries to care for everyone around her, set a good example and keep her family together. Playing such a close sibling relationship was also a personally unusual experience for the actress, who grew up as an only child and felt as though the production had effectively given her a sister for the first time. Creed-Miles was already a familiar face, however, as the two previously appeared together in Edgar-Jones’s first film, 2018’s Pond Life.

Romance naturally remains essential to Sense and Sensibility. Elinor develops feelings for Edward Ferrars, played by 1917 star George MacKay, but both characters are so restrained and conscious of their responsibilities toward others that allowing their relationship to develop becomes difficult. Edgar-Jones believes the social conventions of the period are perfectly captured by the fact that even holding hands could represent a major emotional step. “Yearning is back,” she said, before joking that Jane Austen may have invented yearning itself.

Director Georgia Oakley and screenwriter Diana Reid have therefore resisted the temptation to modernize Austen through conspicuously contemporary behavior or dialogue. Their approach is instead to show that family responsibility, the pressure to please others, suppressed desire, sisterhood and romantic uncertainty remain remarkably recognizable more than two hundred years later. According to Edgar-Jones, that allows the new Sense and Sensibility to offer an escape from the present while simultaneously speaking very directly to audiences in 2026.

(Sense and Sensibility – Hungarian theatrical release: November 5, 2026.)

Source: UIP Dunafilm