What’s it about?

After the death of their father leads to a significant lifestyle downgrade, the Dashwood sisters Elinor and Marianne get tangled up in romance, heartbreak, and everything that goes with it.

What’d we think?

This ain’t your grandpappy’s Austen adaptation; ‘Sense and Sensibility (2026) proves the timelessness of a good romance story, distilling the spirit of the book into a potent romance with a distinctly comedic bent. This is a shockingly modern-feeling adaptation, despite not putting any kind of new spin on the story. Even if you’re intimately familiar with Austen’s novel, this feels fresh and fun and lively. Plenty of lines are lifted verbatim from the novel, but the uniformly excellent cast manages to breathe fresh life into them. While the focus is firmly fixed on Elinor and Marianne, there are no small roles here, and everyone plays their parts to perfection (with a special mention going to Fiona Shaw’s Mrs Jennings).

It’s quite pretty to look at (if a bit colourless), and the story is told with such efficiency that the runtime breezes by without ever feeling rushed. This movie is an absolute delight, crackling with energy and life, and feels the most genuinely human of any of the myriad Austen adaptations one could point to. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved this, and left the theatre positively buzzing.