Sense and Sensibility: The Final Score

One novel down! I watched 10 Sense and Sensibility adaptations over the last three months:

• Sense and Sensibility (1971)
• Sense and Sensibility (1981)
• Sense and Sensibility (1995)
• Kandukondain Kandukondain
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• Material Girls
• Sense and Sensibility (2008)
• From Prada to Nada
• Scents and Sensibility
• Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen

It was easier than I expected to watch so many adaptations of the same work. There's a lot of variety in the bunch, both in the way the story is told and in the quality of the telling. Even watching four straight adaptations wasn't that bad because I enjoyo nitpicking the details. 

Now it's time to move on to Pride and Prejudice, which has been adapted to film more than 30 times. But before I leave Sense and Sensibility behind, I want to hand out some awards.

Bitchiest Adaptation

Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen

It's Christmastime in modern-day Chicago, and sisters Ella (Erin Krakow) and Marianne Dashwood (Kimberley Sustad) are busy running their event planning business together. Ella, the free spirit who is trying to prove that she's ready to commit to the family business, wants to grow their business but faces opposition from Marianne, who is content with the status quo. To prove herself, Ella takes on a last minute Christmas party for toy company executive and fun-hater Edward Ferris (Luke Macfarlane). While sparks fly between Ella and Edward, Marianne is busy flirting awkwardly with the equally awkward Brandon Williams (Jason McKinnon), who is for some reason both Edward's cousin AND the Dashwoods' lawyer.

And there are intensely cozy Christmas vibes throughout.

What's different

Some interesting choices were made for this movie, which is all it takes to get me excited at this point. Marianne and Elinor (Ella) seem to have traded personalities. In adaptation shorthand, Elinor = mature and Marianne = childish. In this movie, however, Marianne is down-to-earth and organized, and Ella is an irresponsible commitment-phobe and hopeless romantic. It feels like the sisters' names were assigned to the characters at random, and they didn't land right.