Raincrow, regarding your "anchor" comment, I would add that one of my favorite scenes with Marianne is when Edward arrives at the cottage. It is Marianne who quickly helps Elinor remove her apron and then works to settle Margaret into an activity on the couch. It is Marianne who initially responds to Edward when Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood are tongue-tied. After Edward sits, Marianne initiates the conversation, which Mrs. Dashwood is then able to pick up and continue. We see Mrs. Dashwood look to Marianne after Elinor begins to cry (as an aside, ET is lovely here) and Marianne initiates their move outside. I love how she sends Maragaret up in the treehouse for reconnaissance, and that even though Mrs. Dashwood professes to be shocked, you can tell she is really rather appreciative.
And once we learn that Edward is "kneeling down," we see Marianne's joy for her sister -- another example of her growing maturity. When compared to the discussion she had with Elinor about Edward at Norland, you can tell that she has learned to recognize what makes Elinor happy and is in turn truly happy for her.
^^ All of this! ☺ Your comment here perfectly communicates one of the reasons that Kate Winslet’s performance works so well, particularly when compared with Charity Wakefield’s. Though I love the 1995
Pride and Prejudice, I’m not enough of an Andrew Davies fan to attempt to rationalize the problems with Marianne’s character development in that 2008
Sense and Sensibility adaptation. Wakefield’s Marianne is sweet -- much milder and sweeter, on the whole, than Winslet’s Marianne -- but also rather insipid. Her emotions vacillate back and forth for no discernable reason, her occasional outbursts are too quickly smoothed over, and she is easily pacified, almost like a child. She is silly, very sweet, and doesn’t undergo any substantial personal growth that I can see.
Marianne isn’t meant to be silly. Winslet’s Marianne is many things -- headstrong, self-assured, heedless, and perhaps less instantly likable than Wakefield -- but not silly. She has passion and conviction, so even if you don’t agree with her worldview (and most of the time, I don’t), you at least understand where she’s coming from; she is an interesting character with motivations that make sense. When she has her epiphany, all of her passion is channeled into a new direction in accordance with her new understanding of life. She is the same person, only with a changed outlook.
As you say, this newfound maturity enables her to step up to support her family. She lifts the burden from Elinor’s shoulders, a bit, and provides a second reasonable voice to help lead the family -- because, goodness knows, her mother is ill-equipped to provide her daughters any real stability*. Elinor’s relief at learning that Edward is free -- and that her emotional distress is at an end -- is indeed very well acted. In spite of her British theatre, character-acting origins, Emma Thompson reminds me of many of the old Hollywood stars -- not a chameleon, but possessing enough skill, charisma, and relatability to render this moot. I would place Tom Hanks in the same category, aside from the British part. I am also convinced that Thompson is brilliant and likely has a genius-level IQ, but that’s a discussion for another time.
It would be nice if there were more scenes showing Marianne’s personal growth and changing feelings for Brandon, though in the case of the latter, what we
do see is so much more conventionally romantic than the passage in the book that the frequent complaint on this site -- that the film’s treatment of this relationship simply isn’t “swoon worthy” enough -- strikes me as being particularly bizarre. The more cogent argument -- which my younger sister has used more than once -- would be that Brandon’s rescuing Marianne in a thunderstorm, reading thematically-significant poetry to her, and sending her a gift of music (thematically-significant music, at that) and an instrument fly in the face of Austen’s conception of the character as good, kind, and dependable, yet unexciting and definitely
not a Romantic in any sense, his standard “tragic background” notwithstanding. The book gives no suggestion, for example, that he has a fondness for poetry or an aptitude for music. I think that Jane Austen might well have a conniption fit were she to see what modern adapters have made of her stories. 😉 I would be lying if I said that I didn’t find them terrifically entertaining, though.
* I feel like putting in a good word for Gemma Jones’ Mrs. Dashwood. True, she is totally impractical, but I really enjoy her character. She seems to be a deeply romantic woman who, prior to the death of her husband, never had to face the harsh realities of life and isn’t equipped to cope, though she gives a commendable effort. Marianne might’ve eventually been a similar situation herself if she had not grown so much as a person.
"Courage is found in unlikely places." ~
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
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