Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen

Runtime- 1hr 23m

Air date- November 30th, 2019

Director- David Winning

Writers- Samantha Herman and Melissa de la Cruz

Filming locations- Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Starring: Erin Krakow as Ella, and Luke Macfarlane as Edward

Where to watch- Hallmark movies now Prime Video channel and rent/buy Prime Video

Source

Summary

Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen is about two Dashwood sisters, Marianne and Ella who run a party planning business. Ella, who is ambitious and free-spirited, has plans to grow and expand her sister’s business, Dashworks, but Marianne has reservations due to her sister’s inconsistency and her history of short-term commitments. To prove her sister wrong, Ella takes on a last-minute client, a large corporate toy company, Ferris Toys, to plan their Christmas party. The CEO of Ferris Toys, Edward Ferris, is a no-nonsense numbers guy who has tunnel vision for logic based on the numbers he sees. Edward and Ella’s personalities clash trying to scramble to get this last-minute Christmas party off to success.

Ella Dashwood
*(Credit: Hallmark *Movies and Mysteries*)*

Initial Thoughts

Note for Reader: This is my first time watching a Hallmark movie based on one of Jane Austen’s works, my initial thoughts are heavily influenced by this being a first-time experience for me. Enjoy!

At first I was taken aback…

When I started watching the movie I was first confused about who Ella was and who Marianne was. They both looked very similar and I was thrown off by their personalities. I was trying to figure out who was who by their personality, one of their names mentioned, or some context of their conversation. Then the mention of Willoughby, I figured out which was Marianne and which one was Ella, but that confused me more. Immediately Willoughby was mentioned and then tossed out of the story, while Marianne had this cold and reserved personality. Ella on the other hand was very carefree. Then we have Edward, who has the personality of a robot and lacks charisma.

This was all in the first ten minutes of the film and I had to pause it and reflect a little. Was I going to hate this movie because it was going far off from the original Jane Austen storyline? At first, the answer was yes, but I had to stop myself and reflect. I wanted to give this movie a chance instead of deciding on disliking it ten minutes in because it didn’t adhere enough to Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility. I had to get some perspective.

List of points that helped me gain new perspective:

One, it is never fair for any creative interpretation, adaptation, or inspired works from any book to be held to the standard of being “good” by going word for word from the original text. Now I don’t do this and I never thought to do this but I did have to rethink how I compared creative works with Jane Austen’s works.

Two, this is a Hallmark movie, wholesome and simple. There is nothing wrong with Hallmark movies, and maybe the use of the word simple might not be the best choice to describe these kinds of movies, but they are typically not overly complex in terms of storyline.

Three, this is a Christmas movie, again wholesome and simple with the storylines. Lastly, the most important in my assessment, bringing back to my first point, was to see if this movie at least incorporated a theme from Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility.

So I continued with the movie with my new set of standards.

Theme

First, some preface…

Before seeing Sense Sensibility & Snowmen, I recently watched a couple of episodes of The Life and Works of Jane Austen on the ‘The Great Courses Signature Collection’ which is a subscription on Amazon Prime Video. Episode 4 was focused on the novel Sense and Sensibility. Devoney Looser, who starred in the series and is also a Jane Austen Scholar, spoke about the name of the title and how it embodied the theme of the book. To summarize, Sense refers to logic and practicality, and Sensibility refers to emotion and feelings. Both are present in multiple characters in the book, usually starting with one of the qualities standing out strongly in one character, with ending with characters finding a balance between the two qualities. This was a really interesting take when learning this, and it later helped me apply it to Sense, Sensibility and Snowmen when looking for the theme.

Now right back to the movie…

Even though the movie doesn’t exercise the theme the same way as the novel, it is still present. With Ella, full of passion for sensibility, and Edward with his logical thinking for sense. Marianne would also be categorized by sense in the film. This is interesting since in the novel Marianne and Elinor would be the opposite. Both characters in the movie, Ella and Edward, show extreme values of the traits and through each other can balance both qualities of sense and sensibility.

Final thoughts

After I watched the movie, I did end up thinking it was a cute Christmas movie. I did end up liking it and they did a good job with the overall theme especially applying it to a modern hallmark Christmas movie. There was a bit of “enemies to lovers” between Ella and Edward, which is a little more on par with Pride & Prejudice. And yes, there were snowmen, not present throughout the movie but they were there around the turning plot point. My final verdict? It was an alright Sense and Sensibility-inspired movie. The way they incorporated the theme was very different and it did work with incorporating the modern Christmas movie. Would I watch it again? Yes, I would but mostly enjoy it as an easygoing Christmas movie though.

Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen: Movie Review

Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen

Summary