Hallmark's Sense and Sensibility 2024 Movie Review

Hallmark’s Sense and Sensibility

Runtime- 1hr 24min

Air date- February 24th, 2024

Director- Roger M. Bobb

Writers- Tim Huddleston

Starring Deborah Ayorinde as Elinor Dashwood and Bethany Antonia as Marianne Dashwood

Hallmark did it. They decided to do a period adaptation of a Jane Austen’s novel. Now we have a period adaptation in true Hallmark fashion all in an hour and a half.

So, how is it?

Where to watch

Before I go on to review this movie, I want to dive in a little bit on where to watch this. As of today May 18th, 2024, (and the last couple of months) all streaming services that advertise this movie on their platform, including Hallmark, have this movie unavailable. I do not know why this was done. My best speculation is that on IMDb there is a good amount of bad reviews of this movie. After finally watching this movie myself, I have to say that the hefty amount of bad reviews do not reflect at all what I think about this movie.

I like to thank the r/janeausten subreddit for helping me find somewhere to stream this. If you would like to watch you can search on letflix.tv and watch the full movie.

I will update this when they make this movie available to more streaming services.

Considerations

I do think this is such a cute movie and I like it a lot. However, it is fairly flawed. All the flaws and mishaps in this movie are all in fashion to Hallmark’s modus operandi.

A period adaptation in an hour and a half, a lot of details had to be omitted. Some details such as giving characters more screen time and interacting with each other can seem sometimes detached or left behind. There may be some dynamic development that gets lost. Jane Austen is usually heavy on drama, and Hallmark has this weird way of having crazy drama but glazing and muting it at the same time. You will see it in this movie. I like to refer to Hallmark movies as “easy watching.” If you don’t want to feel too overwhelmed or too emotionally provoked, Hallmark movies are after a stressful day or an event and you need something simple to take you away from that.

Costumes

To add to the true Hallmark fashion that may not align with historical accuracy is the clothing. In a general sense, a lot of the silhouettes are Regency-era style. But the fabric, colors, and garment adornments are not.

I also noticed that the clothing quality was not consistent throughout. You see one Dashwood sister wear a nicely tailored dress and next to her, you see the other Dashwood sister in an ill-fitted and almost falling apart dress.

Another note is Barton Cottage was staged to be a lot more lavish than all the other period adaptations depict.

Characters

In terms of what I like about the movie, I would say the cast did a great job. I think the actress who played Elinor did a fantastic job. If other important characters received more lines and interactions with other characters, it would have elevated the movie even more.

I was disappointed in the beginning when Marianne had little to no lines during their stay in Norwood. The novel is about two sisters, and omitting Marianne to show the contrast between the two sisters faltered. But as the story progressed, I did see more of Marianne and I thought the actress portrayed her well.