One striking difference is the decision to give more screen time to the oft overlooked third sister, Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach). Several times we see the young girl struggle to face the loss of Norland Park. In one scene, she breathes on the window and traces an \u201cM\u201d on the glass, reclaiming a sense of ownership over the property that is no longer her home. <\/p>\n Margaret and young Henry, John\u2019s son and the future \u201cmaster\u201d of Norland Park, fight over her dollhouse in the playroom, which is then left behind in the move to Devon. At Barton Cottage, Margaret only has a small replica of her dollhouse that sits on the windowsill.<\/p>\n Unlike Ang Lee\u2019s 1995 film, which romanticises Barton Cottage as an idyllic and peaceful home, director Georgia Oakley\u2019s version is small, dark and dingy. The Dashwood women make do. Mrs Dashwood (Caitriona Balfe) learns to cook, and Elinor gardens and does laundry. A fresh take on Mrs Jennings (a brilliant Fiona Shaw) and Sir John Middleton (Turlough Convery) gives the characters strong Devonshire accents, contributing to the sense that the Dashwoods are outsiders in their new community.<\/p>\n \n Younger Austen fans will relate to this new take on the Dashwoods\u2019 complicated relationship to property. In recent years the housing crisis, cost of living chaos and the rise of \u201cgeneration rent\u201d means that only a small portion of gen Z are homeowners. <\/p>\n According to think tank The Women\u2019s Budget Group<\/a>, housing insecurity disproportionately affects women due to \u201cgreater reliance on private renting, unaffordable housing and difficulty keeping up with housing costs\u201d. <\/p>\n Austen herself faced housing insecurity throughout her life, particularly after the death of her own father. She revised Sense and Sensibility between 1809 and 1810 while living on her brother\u2019s estate in Chawton as his dependant.<\/p>\n The film reflects a truth that gen Z are painfully aware of: romance and property are often inextricable. <\/p>\n Just as YouGov<\/a> report that \u201cover a third of women in a couple are financially dependent on their partner\u201d, the only hope for the Dashwood sisters is to marry a man of significant means. <\/p>\n Marianne\u2019s \u201csituationship\u201d with the caddish Willoughby (whom gen Z might describe as a textbook lovebomber and ghoster) promises the large estate of Combe Magna. When he snubs her at a ball, he describes Marianne to his rich fianc\u00e9e as the girl \u201cfrom the little cottage in the country\u201d. <\/p>\n Later, in a scene visually replicated from the 1995 adaptation in which Marianne walks to Willoughby\u2019s estate in the rain, there is one key difference: where Kate Winslet woefully recites Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnet 116<\/a>, Esm\u00e9 Creed-Miles lets out a guttural scream directed towards the property she once dreamed of being mistress of.<\/p>\n The film also reflects gen Z\u2019s worries about modern dating. Inside homes, characters are limited to what they can say, whereas in nature, couples can express their true feelings without the fear or impropriety (all of Austen\u2019s successful proposals happen outside for this very reason). <\/p>\n In many ways, the problems that Austen\u2019s heroines wrestle with continue today. Marianne despairs of \u201csecond attachments\u201d, while gen Z discourse over \u201cbody counts\u201d (the number of sexual partners somebody has) circulates online. Where Austen presents both the dangers and safety that marriage posed for women, \u201cpinkpill\u201d influencers promote hypergamy (marrying up) and tradwife lifestyles. <\/p>\n In a world in which \u201chaving a boyfriend is embarrassing\u201d<\/a> and \u201cgetting the ick\u201d seems unavoidable, romance also seems increasingly essential for survival. The Kinsey Insitute<\/a> reports that more than half of young single people are interested in finding a partner to share expenses with because of the bad state of the economy. <\/p>\n \n Oakley\u2019s adaptation is therefore a welcome take on Austen\u2019s novel. It provokes its audience to question how much has changed between 1811 and 2026 in respect to women\u2019s struggle for independence.<\/p>\n Gen z\u2019s tendency to view things in black and white<\/a> perhaps robs the audience of Austen\u2019s nuances in this adaptation and softens her heroes. Marianne\u2019s novel counterpart is only 16, whereas Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum) is \u201con the wrong side of five and thirty\u201d. The decision to decrease his age (and increase hers) is likely due to recent online discourse around problematic age-gap relationships<\/a>. <\/p>\n Similarly, the film presents Edward\u2019s (George MacKay) bad treatment of Elinor as a result of his overly virtuous nature. Hugh Grant\u2019s characterisation of him in Ang Lee\u2019s adaptation as awkward, weak willed and a bad communicator aligned more closely to the novel.<\/p>\n The film\u2019s ending might neatly resolve the romantic and economic problems that face its gen Z audience, as the two sisters may now live harmoniously as neighbours with their true loves. But Austen\u2019s endings are never entirely satisfactory, and Sense and Sensibility ends abruptly. Oakley robs us of the classic white wedding scenes we have come to associate with Austen adaptations, leaving audiences to question whether the Dashwood sisters will truly be happy in their new homes and husbands.<\/p>\n Katie MacLean does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Jane Austen drafted Sense and Sensibility in the late 1790s, Britain was experiencing a huge financial crisis. Despite its publication nearly 215 years ago, the novel\u2019s most recent screen adaptation highlights the surprising relatability for a gen Z audience of the heroines\u2019 economic and romantic struggles. The novel follows sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n Introducing Jane Austen\u2019s Paper Trail \u2013 a new podcast from The Conversation<\/a>
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\nAdapting Austen for gen Z<\/h2>\n
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\n Jane Austen\u2019s world ran on gossip \u2013 and she revelled in it<\/a>
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