Sense and Sensibility

I just watched this with my wife...

My children and I had purchased it (along with Ever After and some smelly candles) for Mother's Day.

After we finished the movie, I turned to my wife and facetiously said, "we can never let our daughter watch this until well after she is married!"

As we were getting ready for bed we talked about our daughter and her romantic sensibilities. She is incurable. She has already had her first brush with heartbreak.

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In the movie is a character, John Willoughby, who romances one of the leading characters named Marianne. He is romantic, dashing, and handsome. His passion and wit are exactly what she is hoping for, and her passion burns bright alongside his. It is then revealed that he has an illegitimate child from another woman, and has set aside his feelings for Marianne for the money he will receive if he marries another woman.

Marriane is crushed.

But she then discovers another, a man who has been there all along, who loves her deeply and constantly. The heartbreak of her first romance allows her to reflect on her own foolishness in judgment, and to see more clearly those attributes in a man that are truly worthy of love and admiration.

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After talking through the movie with my wife, I realized that this is the perfect movie to show my daughter, (perhaps in another few years!) to open the door to deeper reflection.

I pray that my daughter can learn enough from watching the fictional Willoughby action, such that she will never fall into the hands of a flesh and blood Willoughby...