Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 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 Elinor's younger sister Marianne. The story follows the Dashwood sisters, 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. Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman play their suitors.

Producer Lindsay Doran, a long time admirer of Austen's novel, hired Thompson to write the screenplay. She spent five years drafting numerous revisions, continually working on the script between other films as well as into production of the film itself. Studios were nervous that Thompson—a first-time screenwriter—was the credited writer, but Columbia Pictures agreed to distribute the film. Though initially intending to have another actress portray Elinor, Thompson was persuaded to take the role. Thompson's screenplay 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. Elinor and Marianne's different characteristics were emphasised through imagery and invented scenes. Lee was selected as director, both for his work in the 1993 film The Wedding Banquet and because Doran believed he would help the film appeal to a wider audience. Lee was given a budget of $16 million.

Sense and Sensibility was released on 13 December 1995, in the United States by Sony Pictures Releasing through its Columbia label. A commercial success, earning $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 earned seven Academy Awards nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Actress. Thompson received the award for Best Adapted Screenplay, becoming the only person to have won Academy Awards for both acting and screenwriting. Sense and Sensibility contributed to a resurgence in popularity for Austen's works, and has led to many more productions in similar genres. It continues to be recognised as one of the best Austen adaptations of all time.

Plot

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When Henry Dashwood dies, his wife and three daughters—Elinor, Marianne and Margaret—are left with an inheritance of only £500 a year. The bulk of his estate, Norland Park, is left to his son, John, from his first marriage. John and his greedy, snobbish wife Fanny immediately install themselves in the large house; Fanny invites her brother, Edward Ferrars, to stay with them. She frets about the budding friendship between Edward and Elinor, believing he can do better, and does everything she can to prevent it from developing into a romantic attachment.

Sir John Middleton, a cousin of the widowed Mrs. Dashwood, offers her a small cottage house on his estate, Barton Park in Devonshire. She and her daughters move in and are frequent guests at Barton Park. Marianne meets the older Colonel Brandon, who falls in love with her at first sight. Competing for her affections is the dashing John Willoughby, with whom she falls in love. Later one morning she expects him to propose marriage to her, but he instead leaves hurriedly for London.

Sir John's mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings, invites her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, to visit. They bring with them the impoverished Lucy Steele. Lucy confides in Elinor that she and Edward have been engaged secretly for five years, thus dashing Elinor's hopes of a future with him. Mrs. Jennings takes Lucy, Elinor, and Marianne to London, where they meet Willoughby at a ball. He barely acknowledges their acquaintance, and they learn he has become engaged to the extremely wealthy Miss Grey. Marianne is inconsolable. Colonel Brandon then reveals that his ward Beth, illegitimate daughter of his former love Eliza, is pregnant with Willoughby's child and was abandoned by him; Willoughby's aunt, Lady Allen, had disinherited him upon discovering this. The engagement of Edward and Lucy also comes to light. Edward's mother demands that he break it off. When he honorably refuses, his fortune is taken from him and given to his younger brother, Robert.

On their way home to Devonshire, Elinor and Marianne stop for the night at the country estate of the Palmers, who live near Willoughby. Marianne cannot resist going to see Willoughby's estate and walks a long way in torrential rain to do so. As a result, she becomes seriously ill and is nursed back to health by Elinor after being rescued by Colonel Brandon. After Marianne recovers, the sisters return home. They learn that Lucy has become Mrs. Ferrars and assume that she married Edward. However, Edward arrives to explain that Lucy has in fact wed his now-wealthy brother Robert, and Edward is thus released from his engagement. Edward proposes to Elinor and becomes a vicar, while Marianne marries Colonel Brandon.

Cast

  • Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood
  • Hugh Grant as Edward Ferrars
  • Kate Winslet as Marianne Dashwood
  • Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon
  • Imogen Stubbs as Lucy Steele
  • Greg Wise as John Willoughby
  • Gemma Jones as Mrs. Dashwood
  • Harriet Walter as Fanny Dashwood
  • James Fleet as John Dashwood
  • Hugh Laurie as Mr. Palmer
  • Imelda Staunton as Charlotte Palmer
  • Robert Hardy as Sir John Middleton
  • Elizabeth Spriggs as Mrs. Jennings
  • Tom Wilkinson as Mr. Dashwood
  • Emilie François as Margaret Dashwood
  • Richard Lumsden as Robert Ferrars

Production

Conception and adaptation

In 1989, Lindsay Doran, a producer of production company Mirage Enterprises, was on a company retreat brainstorming potential film ideas when she suggested the Jane Austen novel Sense and Sensibility to her colleagues. She also praised the novel for possessing "wonderful characters&nbsp;... three strong love stories, surprising plot twists, good jokes, relevant themes, and a heart-stopping ending."

Prior to being hired at Mirage, the producer had spent years looking for a suitable screenwriter – someone who was "equally strong in the areas of satire and romance" and could think in Austen's language "almost as naturally as he or she could think in the language of the twentieth century". Doran read screenplays by English and American writers until she came across a series of comedic skits, often in period settings, that actress Emma Thompson had written. Doran believed the humour and style of writing was "exactly what [she'd] been searching for". Thompson and Doran were already working together on Mirage's 1991 film Dead Again. A week after its completion, the producer selected Thompson to adapt Sense and Sensibility, The actress found that Sense and Sensibility contained more action than she had remembered and decided it would translate well to drama.

thumb|[[Emma Thompson worked on the Sense and Sensibility screenplay for five years.]]

Thompson spent five years writing and revising the screenplay, both during and between shooting other films. Believing the novel's language to be "far more arcane than in [Austen's] later books," Thompson sought to simplify the dialogue while retaining the "elegance and wit of the original." She observed that in a screenwriting process, a first draft often had "a lot of good stuff in it" but needed to be edited, and second drafts would "almost certainly be rubbish&nbsp;... because you get into a panic". Thompson credited Doran that she could "help me, nourish me and mentor me through that process&nbsp;... I learned about screenwriting at her feet".

Thompson's first draft was more than three hundred handwritten pages, which required her to reduce it to a more manageable length. She found the romances to be the most difficult to "juggle",

Lee's hire

Taiwanese director Ang Lee was hired as a result of his work in the 1993 family comedy film The Wedding Banquet, which he co-wrote, produced, and directed. He was not familiar with Jane Austen. Doran felt that Lee's films, which depicted complex family relationships amidst a social comedy context, were a good fit with Austen's storylines.