Keep it. Feeling is not a moral, and reserve is not coldness. Both sisters have something to learn.
The review
The Dashwood women are pushed out by an inheritance that prefers a son, and the film is clear-eyed about the money. Marianne's sincerity is beautiful and dangerous. Elinor's silence is loyal and costly. Neither is the whole virtue. Edward's honor about a promise he hates is the kind of fidelity modern stories treat as the obstacle. Here it is the character. Colonel Brandon's patience is not flashy enough for Marianne at first, which is the point.
Adults and older teens. It is talk and walks and a broken heart that does not get to destroy the family. That is a rare romance.
Keep it for adults who can bear it. A free man, a paper, a wife and children, and a country that called the theft law.
The review
Solomon Northup was a citizen of New York with a wife, children, and a trade, and the United States allowed him to be sold. The film's discipline is to stay with the time. It does not offer a white savior as the meaning, though a man finally carries a letter. The meaning is the letter, the name, and the fact that the law had to be contradicted by a person willing to act. Patsey's suffering is not there for our refinement. It is there because leaving her out would be another theft.
Adults. Do not put it on as a background of importance. If you watch it, watch it through, and do not follow it with a cheerful picture the same night. The charge is not a feeling. The charge is to know that a legal theft is still a theft, and to be the person who carries the letter.
