Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 British drama film directed by Ang Lee. The screenplay by Emma Thompson is based on the 1811 novel of the same name by Jane Austen.
Plot synopsis
When Mr. Dashwood dies, his wife and three daughters - Elinor, Marianne and Margaret - are dismayed to learn that their inheritance consists of only £500 a year, with the bulk of the estate of Norland Park left to his son John from a previous marriage. John's scheming, greedy, snobbish wife Fanny immediately installs herself and her spouse in the palatial home and invites her brother Edward Ferrars to stay with them. She frets about the budding friendship between Edward and Elinor and does everything she can to prevent it from developing.
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. It is here that Marianne meets the older Colonel Brandon, who falls in love with her at first sight. Competing with him for her affections is the dashing but deceitful John Willoughby, who steals Marianne's heart. Unbeknownst to the Dashwood family, Brandon's ward is found to be pregnant with Willoughby's child, and Willoughby's aunt Lady Allen disinherits him. He moves to London, leaving Marianne heartbroken.
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 romance with him. Mrs. Jennings takes Lucy, Elinor, and Marianne to London, where they meet Willoughby at a ball. They learn that he is engaged to the extremely wealthy Miss Grey; and the clandestine engagement of Edward and Lucy comes to light. Edward's mother demands that he break off the engagement. When he 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 his estate and walks five miles in a torrential rain to do so. As a result, she becomes seriously ill and is nursed back to health by Elinor.
After Marianne recovers, the sisters return home. They learn that Miss Steele has become Mrs. Ferrars and assume that she is married to Edward, who arrives to explain that Miss Steele has unexpectedly wed Robert Ferrars. Edward is thus released from his engagement. Edward proposes to Elinor and becomes a vicar, while Marianne falls in love with and marries Colonel Brandon.
Production notes
Emma Thompson spent four years writing the screenplay, which went through many revisions. She hoped that producer Lindsay Doran would consider sisters Natasha and Joely Richardson, the daughters of Vanessa Redgrave, for the key roles of Elinor and Marianne; but when Ang Lee insisted Thompson play Elinor, she protested that she was too old to play a 19-year-old girl. Lee suggested that she change the character's age to 27, which would also make her distress at being a spinster easier for contemporary audiences to understand.[1]
On an episode of the popular quiz show QI, Emma Thomson revealed that she lost the screenplay on her faulty computer. When a repairman could not retrieve the file, she took the computer in a taxi to friend Stephen Fry, who, along with flatmate Hugh Laurie, spent seven hours retrieving the missing file.
Sense and Sensibility was filmed at a number of locations in Devon, including Saltram House, the village church in Berry Pomeroy, Compton Castle, and the cobbled streets of Barbican in Plymouth. Settings in London included Somerset House on The Strand and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Additional scenes were filmed at Trafalgar House and Wilton House in Wiltshire, Mompesson House in Salisbury, and Montacute House in South Somerset.
The film was budgeted at US$16,500,000. It grossed US$42,993,774 in the US and US$92,000,000 in foreign markets for a worldwide box office total of US$134,993,774.[2]
Principal cast
Critical reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, 48 of 49 critics gave the film a positive review, resulting in a 98% approval rating.[3]
In her review in the New York Times, Janet Maslin called the film "...grandly entertaining... a sparkling, colorful and utterly contemporary comedy of manners... Emma Thompson proves as crisp and indispensably clever a screenwriter as she is a leading lady."[4]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said the film is "entertaining and amusing [and] enjoyable, civilized, yet somehow not as satisfying as Persuasion... because the earlier film looked simpler and more authentic, and this one seems a little too idealized."[5]
In his review in San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle stated, "[This is] an exuberant, well-crafted film that gets the audience involved on a gut level even before the opening credits are over... Ang Lee might at first seem an unlikely choice to direct an adaptation from English literature. But he does it with the right balance of irony and warmth. The result is a film of great understanding and emotional clarity, filmed with an elegance that never calls attention to itself."[6]
Barbara Shulgasser of the San Francisco Examiner enthused, "What a glorious time is had by all in this wonderful adaptation of Jane Austen's novel... Ang Lee serves up this sweetmeat without fuss, without the super-seriousness of filmmakers awed by their literary material... [He] and Thompson create a world so believable in its absurd rigidity that we feel we have known these characters all our lives. We are unshakably interested in everything that happens to them. The movie is so intelligently wrought, and so full of good spirit that even those who have behaved badly are at the end given the chance to seem human and pained by their own weaknesses."[7]
Todd McCarthy of Variety observed, "Thompson's script manages the neat trick of preserving the necessary niceties and decorum of civilized behavior of the time while still cutting to the dramatic quick. But she and Lee have always kept an eye out for the comedic possibilities in any situation, assisted by a highly skilled cast of actors, which, down to the most briefly seen supporting player, collectively seems to understand the wit and high spirits of the approach. The choice of Lee to direct this so specifically British and period film, and his great success in doing so, will no doubt be the source of much wonderment. Although his previously revealed talents for dramatizing conflicting social and generational traditions will no doubt be noted, Lee's achievement here with such foreign material is simply well beyond what anyone could have expected and may well be posited as the cinematic equivalent of Kazuo Ishiguro writing The Remains of the Day."[8]
In Newsweek, Jack Kroll opined, "As writer and actress, Thompson has all the right Austen rhythms and filmmaker Ang Lee orchestrates with sensitivity and style. The screen teems with brilliant costumes and crackles with dialogue that turns English into verbal Mozart."[9]
Trivia
Six actors in this film went on to appear in at least one Harry Potter film:
- Alan Rickman who played Col. Christopher Brandon, plays Potion Professor Severus Snape.
- Emma Thompson who played Elinor Dashwood, plays Divination Professor Sybill Trelawney.
- Robert Hardy who played Sir John Middleton, plays Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge.
- Imelda Staunton who played Charlotte Jennings Palmer, plays Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, Dolores Umbridge.
- Gemma Jones who played Mrs. Dashwood, plays School Nurse, Madam Poppy Pomfrey.
- Elizabeth Spriggs who played Mrs. Jennings, played The Fat Lady (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Dawn French played the character in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).
Kenneth Branagh was attached to this film at one time.
During filming, the Jane Austen Society telephoned co-producer James Schamus to complain about the casting of Hugh Grant, claiming that he was too good-looking to play Edward Ferrars.
Director Ang Lee had not read Jane Austen's novel when Columbia sent him Emma Thompson's script.
The first draft of the screenplay consisted of 350 handwritten pages. The final draft was a culmination of that and 13 other drafts which were written over four and a half years.
Marianne Dashwood's wedding dress was trimmed with straw.
Awards and nominations
- Academy Award for Best Picture (nominee)
- Academy Award for Best Actress (Emma Thompson, nominee)
- Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Kate Winslet, nominee)
- Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (winner)
- Academy Award for Best Cinematography (nominee)
- Academy Award for Best Costume Design (nominee)
- Academy Award for Best Original Score (nominee)
- BAFTA Award for Best Film (winner)
- BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Emma Thompson, winner)
- BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Kate Winslet, winner; Elizabeth Spriggs, nominee)
- BAFTA Award for Best Direction (nominee)
- BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Alan Rickman, nominee)
- BAFTA Award for Best Film Music (nominee)
- BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography (nominee)
- BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design (nominee)
- BAFTA Award for Best Production Design (nominee)
- BAFTA Award for Best Makeup (nominee)
- BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (nominee)
- Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama (winner)
- Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay (winner)
- Golden Globe Award for Best Director - Motion Picture (nominee)
- Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama (Emma Thompson, nominee)
- Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture (Kate Winslet, nominee)
- Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score (nominee)
- Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress (Kate Winslet, winner)
- Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Screenplay (winner)
- London Film Critics Circle Award for British Screenwriter of the Year (winner)
- Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture (winner)
- Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director (winner)
- Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress (Emma Thompson, winner)
- Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear Award for Best Film (winner)
- Broadcast Film Critics Award for Best Picture (winner)
- Broadcast Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay (winner)
- Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay (winner)
- National Board of Review Award for Best Picture (winner)
- National Board of Review Award for Best Director (winner)
- National Board of Review Award for Best Actress (Emma Thompson, winner)
- National Board of Review Award for Best Screenplay (winner)
- New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director (winner)
- New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay (winner)
- Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role (Kate Winslet, winner)
- Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (Emma Thompson, nominee)
- Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance (nominee)
- Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published (winner)
References
External links
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Films directed by Ang Lee |
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