Formative Performances: Emma Thompson in “Sense and Sensibility”

What, did you think I was only going to write one post about Emma Thompson? Preposterous!

In the 1995 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, Emma Thompson plays Elinor Dashwood, a very different character from Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. While Beatrice is feisty, independent, and never afraid to share her opinion, Elinor is very guarded. She holds her emotions close to her chest and lets reason and good sense rule her life. Even when she faces disappointment, she can usually find a reasonable explanation for why the disappointing event happened. It’s her way of moving on and coping.

Her mother and sisters are much more overtly emotional than Elinor, and they often mistake her calm, serene exterior as evidence of a lack of feeling, when nothing can be further from the truth. In this scene, Elinor and her sister Marianne (Kate Winslet) learn that Edward Ferrars, the man that Elinor loves, is engaged to Lucy Steele. (Full disclosure: Lucy Steele is terrible. We love to hate her.) Marianne realizes immediately that Elinor has known all along and confronts her sister about the information.

This is the first scene where guarded, reasonable Elinor almost breaks. She lets out a cry from deep within her chest that almost gets through, almost takes over, but she catches on at the last minute because she can’t cry – not over this, not in front of her sister, not in front of everyone. If she dwells on this disappointment, she’ll never be able to move on, never be able to pretend that everything is okay.

And she wrote this scene – adapted from Jane Austen’s marvelous prose, yes, but some of that dialogue is completely her own. I adore her.