Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Scents & Sensibility: a Befuddled Rant

So, you may know from following along in Austen in August (or from following me on Twitter) that for this weekend's Assignment Austen, I chose to watch the modern S&S update, Scents & Sensibility, and I documented the "journey" on Twitter.
And I. . .
I just. . .

Why is this movie? Why?


You probably know the drill by now, so let's get into it!



My issues with this movie were many, but the first was the "magic lotion" Marianne was always making. Lotion that would give you an itchy rash if not prepared just so. 
Lotion that apparently contained fresh fruit (bacteria breeding ground) and fresh cream??? 

But honestly, Marianne's suspect lotion was just the beginning of this movie's problems. 
The music, the directing, the "acting": all of it was pretty suspect.
And the inciting incident that brings this modern version to life? OH YEAH, THEY'RE FATHER IS A FRAUDSTER.

Actually, much of the (unintentional) humor and (minimal) enjoyment derived from this movie came from references to the Ponzi scheme, tbh...
But the problems started, honestly, with the script. The choices that were made in "modernizing" the plot where problematic, at best. 

They took away all of the complexities, all of the nuance, all of the depth; gone is the sincere look at the psychologies and personalities of two very different sisters, and the beauty of what happens when those two personalities borrow a bit from each other and grow better and stronger as a result. 
Gone is all of the romance... 

...the angst, the real struggle; Marianne and Elinor's biggest struggle seemed to be not having a functioning TV (oh, and a half-hearted worry about their sister's need for medication, which felt very much tacked on to give us a reason to care about their "predicament"). 


I could go on at length about the many ways this movie failed, but it all boils down to the sheer half-heartedness of the entire endeavor.


I had a lot more to say, and you can see all of it here, but for now, and hopefully forever, I am done with this movie.
Badly done, Scents & Sensibility.



Jane Austen, Austen in August, blog event, Jane Austen fan fiction, JAFF, The Book Rat, BookRatMisty
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5 comments:

  1. danyaAugust 23, 2019 at 9:07 PM

    I watched this one years ago and I...*think* I finished it? I remember having pretty much exactly the same reaction as you. Really this was such a sad, sad attempt at an adaptation, capturing none of the thoughtfulness of Austen's original.

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  2. CeriAugust 26, 2019 at 10:45 AM

    Oh my days. This blog post is like a public service announcement informing me that I need to avoid this!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MistyAugust 26, 2019 at 5:57 PM

      Orrrrr, watch it and we can commiserate! lol

      Delete
  3. darcybennettSeptember 3, 2019 at 7:20 AM

    I had this on my watchlist but never have gotten around to trying to find it to watch. After reading your thoughts on it, it has firmly earned its spot low on the list but I still want to watch it eventually just to see how bad it is. Perhaps I might be able to talk my husband into watching it too as he used to have a bad movie night with his friends where they would purposely pick awful movies to watch and laugh at and this seems to fit the bill.

    ReplyDelete
  4. lawn dressingApril 19, 2021 at 5:05 AM

    But honestly, Marianne's suspect lotion was just the beginning of this movie's problems. latest pakistani lawn dresses 2016 , womens lawn suits

    ReplyDelete

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