Why Didn't Georgia Oakley Want to Modernize Jane Austen for Her New Film 'Sense and Sensibility'?

Oakley tells IndieWire she prioritized the Dashwood sisters (Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esme Creed-Miles), and the range of inspirations for her new Austen adaptation, from Barry Lyndon to Days of Heaven.

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English director Georgia Oakley showcased a distinctive, naturalistic style — and her ability to translate a personal story into an original screenplay — with her debut feature, Blue Jean. This atmospheric drama follows a closeted gym teacher in Newcastle, who introduces Section 28 of Margaret Thatcher's anti-gay laws. So, a period piece from Reigns with an adapted script already attached was not the most expected choice for his second film. However, the director offers a fresh take on Jane Austen's classic "Sense and Sensibility" that fits seamlessly into her growing body of work.

“I think it probably has something to do with the fact that I love outsider stories,” Oakley told IndieWire. "I'm interested in characters who just live on the edges of whatever seems to be the status quo at the time." Related Stories Zendaya to Star in Alex Garland's New A24 Sci-Fi Film Netflix Finally Reports Box Office Data Why does it start with "La Bola Negra"?

Oakley also favors stories that use a strong narrative framework to explore social issues and subvert expectations. The frame of this story is obviously romantic. But at the same time, she [Jane Austen] has put in all these subversive messages about the limitations of living as a woman. "And I think I'm always drawn to stories where it takes you on a journey, but at the same time, you open up themes that are quite rich and resonant."

Oakley's Sense and Sensibility, starring Daisy Edgar Jones and Esme Creed Miles as the central Dashwoods, sisters Elinor and Marian, is weaker than its most famous predecessors, including Ang Lee's popular 1995 version with co-writer and Emma Thomp, Cathamp. Although the new film, a collaboration between Working Title and Focus Features, is as faithful to the source text as any Austen lover could want — even those who might object to a softened Willoughby (The Urchin star Frank Dylan) or a particularly self-serving Lucy Steele (Ciara Cowan).

Oakley, who studied English literature at Newcastle University, has long been a fan of Austen's first novel for its focus on the growing relationship between the older sisters and, she says, for its "wildness". Like screenwriter Diana Reed, Oakley wanted to foreground a "sister love story" rather than a romance between them. However, unlike some recent adaptations of classic literature, he did not feel that Austen's narrative needed to be updated or packaged in a contemporary style. A way to feel relevant.

"I really feel that Austen was writing about things that were so inherently contemporary that they didn't need to be modernized," Oakley said. "I don't know if 'cleanser' is the right word, but there's definitely something about not fixing what's not broken."

Diana wrote a screenplay that preserved Austen's authentic language as much as possible. He's not trying to say, "We can only identify with these people if we bring them into the present." "The main thing is that we have to be able to let the story take us, and feel a connection with these characters despite our differences, rather than trying to be close to them," he said. he said Thematically, ["Sense and Sensibility"] is really something of a young woman in today's unchanging world.

Despite being past the contemporary lens, Oakley, like many filmmakers given the opportunity to make a major studio adaptation, did not shy away from casting actors who were recognizable to today's moviegoers. To round out the main cast, Oakley cast the iconic Fiona Shaw as Mrs. Jennings, "Outlander" star Bodhi Rae Breathnach as Mrs. Dashwood, Dashwood's youngest sister, and English charmer George MacKay as Edward, Eleanor's kind hearted lover. And even without Edgar Jones, who is quickly becoming one of Hollywood's best young actresses, we could struggle with a lot of star power.

Contrary to what we have seen in recent adaptations, popular co-stars mostly disappear into their characters to make a spectacle out of them as the director intended. "I want the audience to get to these characters as little as possible," Oakley said. He explained that he was excited by the challenge of portraying the film's stars - and especially Edgar Jones, who hasn't played a role in Britain for years - in a way that felt original rather than distracting. I want the audience to know the characters without thinking, 'That's the person.'

But turning his stars into believable Georgian heroes wasn't the only acting challenge Oakley had to overcome to realize his version of Sense and Sensibility. Finding the perfect candidates for the period piece's two main locations - Neverland Park, the stately home the family must vacate after Mr Dashwood's death, and Barton Cottage, the humble home they move into in remote Devon - was equally essential. "Casting those two locations was as important and weighty as casting the two sisters. Cornwall, Dorset and Devon even before a production designer was on board," said Oakley, who was scouting properties along the rugged coastline.

Oakley's focus on finding the perfect setting for his comedy of manners isn't surprising, given what he accomplished production-wise with "Blue Gin," set in a small town in northern England in 1988. The director - who was inspired by a series of paintings, as well as Stanley Kubrick's The Historical Approach and Lyndon's Historical Approach. Using design elements to originalize and shape the aesthetics of his films.

For example, when the group came across the West Dorset estate that served as the childhood home of the Dashwood sisters, Oakley noticed how the property inherently captured the kind of history he wanted to portray in Neverland Park. "It was big and impactful in the way I wanted it to be, but it also had this kind of collapse. Like, even the pattern in front of the rock was kind of lived in. And so it spoke to this naturalistic feeling that I was going for," the director said.

"And there was actually a young family living in the house that had inherited it, so there was some overlap, in that they weren't really sure what to do with it or how to take care of it. They'd only been there a short time, and the wallpaper was peeling, and the carpets were wearing out, and I felt like it was a lovely home, but I didn't exactly feel like I was looking at it. Everything was a little more intimate. And it is more relatable and human." he added.

The stand at Barton Cottage, a one-room house in south Devon more suited to livestock than people, wasn't quite ready - or with a roof. After production designer Francesca Di Mottola and her team finished the transformation, and the crew brought in a small herd of animals to fill in, the quaint space had the look of a place that, with enough love, could become a home. But unlike many of the beach huts Oakley had explored, it still felt isolated, which was fitting for the story and necessary for his portrayal of the Dashwoods in the film's finale.

As the story unfolds, Oakley's adaptation, shot on 35mm by cinematographer Arnaud Pothier ("Dead Wire"), increasingly shows the growing Dashwood girls studying on the farm, doing outdoor chores, and bringing elements of the natural world indoors, turning the small cottage into a home. And it's not just because the sisters' outdoor scenes give the film a dreamlike quality, with a palette you might use to paint a pastoral landscape. Oakley, who also cited Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven as a reference, found the best way to access the inner lives of Austen's young heroes was to place them in the elements.

"I felt that it spoke to my memory of reading the book for the first time. But also, I was really drawn to the relationship between those young women and the time," Wakley said of his agency, explaining that he talked a lot with his colleagues about "what it felt like to sit in the fields and wait for the mail to arrive," not knowing when or if.

“In today's world — where we're bombarded with emails and updates every five seconds — it's almost unimaginable what it feels like to spend time in front of you. And then when you combine it with grief and a family that has just experienced such a great loss..." he said, noting that Elinor and Marian are still grieving their father's death while struggling with the ups and downs of a new romance. "I felt like nature was trying to say a lot. "It was supposed to kind of fill in the spaces in terms of understanding the emotional landscape of the characters, as things evolve, as the story evolves, as they move from place to place, as the seasons change."

Sense and Sensibility opens in US theaters on October 16 from Focus Features.