"Marianne's abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor's. She was sensible and clever; but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation. She was generous, amiable, interesting: she was everything but prudent. The resemblance between her and her mother was strikingly great." - Sense & Sensibility, Jane Austen
This is from the newest adaptation of Sense & Sensibility staring the lovely Charity Wakefield as Marianne Dashwood. I love these shots of her in this dress and shawl during the scene at Allenham with Willoughby. Truly and beauty and perhaps a beast of a man? This thought just came to me. Willoughby is actually my favorite of Jane Austen's "villians", he's so horrible yet so pitiable at the same time. If only he was brought up better, had better guidance, if only Eliza was kept better track of, if only Willoughby had money enough to marry her at once. He'd a monster, but and interesting one. I've considered writing a story of his life, but it would be rather sordid so I'll leave it to others.
This adaptation is beautiful by the way and I beliveve the characters were perfectly cast. I'm thinking it's the best yet even though I'll always love Emma Thompson's adaptation.
Listless
Haha! Well, I still prefer the '95 version, as you are probably aware ( ;-) ), but I still really, really like the new version! My favourite Austen villain is Henry Crawford - but I agree with you, it's hard not to feel for Willoughby, in spite of the huge mistakes that he made.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason I feel for Willoughby, is because he did actually love Marianne. But he still wasn't a very good person.
ReplyDeleteI love this version of Sense and Sensibility, I can't decide if I like Emma Thompson better or not. But the person who I think did better in the 1995 version was Greg Wise as Willoughby. Dominic Cooper was just to evil looking to be Willouhgby, Willoughby wasn't supposed to be evil looking.