Sense and Sensibility (film)

Sense and Sensibility (film)

Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and stars as Elinor Dashwood. Kate Winslet plays her younger sister Marianne. Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman play their respective suitors. The film was released on December 13, 1995, in the United States. It is still the only Austen adaptation to have won an Academy Award for both acting and screenwriting.

About Sense and Sensibility (film) in brief

Summary Sense and Sensibility (film)Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 British-American period drama film directed by Ang Lee and based on Jane Austen’s 1811 novel of the same name. Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and stars as Elinor Dashwood, while Kate Winslet plays her younger sister Marianne. Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman play their respective suitors. The film was released on December 13, 1995, in the United States. A commercial success, earning USD 135 million worldwide, the film garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews upon release and received many accolades, including three awards and eleven nominations at the 1995 British Academy Film Awards. It persists in being recognised as one of the best Austen adaptations of all time, and has led to many more productions in similar genres. It is still the only Austen adaptation to have won an Academy Award for both acting and screenwriting, as well as a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It has also been described as the best adaptation of any novel ever made by a major Hollywood studio, with the exception of Gone with the Wind, which was directed by Quentin Tarantino and released in 1994. The screenplay was written by Thompson, a first-time screenwriter, who spent five years working on the script. It exaggerated the Dashwood family’s wealth to make their later scenes of poverty more apparent to modern audiences. It also altered the traits of the male leads to make them more appealing to contemporary viewers.

The Dashwood sisters are members of a wealthy English family of landed gentry, as they must deal with circumstances of sudden destitution. They are forced to seek financial security through marriage. The sisters meet the older Colonel Brandon, who falls in love with Marianne at first sight. However, Marianne considers him incapable of feeling love or inspiring it in another. When they meet at a ball, they soon learn he is engaged to the extremely inconsolable Miss Greyne, who is the illegitimate daughter of Willoughby’s aunt and benefactress of Eliza Allen, the Lady Allen’s former ward. When she learns of his behavior, she disinherited him so he chose to marry Lady Allen for money. The friendship between Edward and ElinOr has become mutual, but they cannot marry because Edward has been secretly engaged to Lucy, and will not break his promise to her to break his love for her. The two sisters move to a small cottage house on his estate, Barton Park in Devonshire, and are frequent guests at Barton Park. Fanny convinces him to give his half sisters nothing financially; John and Fanny immediately install themselves in the large house, forcing the Dashwoods ladies to look for a new home. When John’s stingy, greedy and snobbish wife, Mrs. Jennings, invites her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, to visit. They bring with them Lucy Steele. Lucy confides in El inor that she and Edward have been engaged secretly for five years.