Lindsay Doran film. Doran explained, "For 10 years I'd been trying to find somebody I thought could adapt it. Usually romantics are too optimistic and dreamy to see Austen's cynicism, and satirists are too cynical to believe in romance." Thompson fit Doran's criteria for a good screenwriter, despite the actress never having written a screenplay before. The resulting production of "Sense and Sensibility" earned Thompson an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, making her the only person to have won an Oscar for both her writing and acting (Thompson won the Best Actress award for "Howards End", in 1993). Along with producing,
Sense and Sensibility (film) a dromedary." However, many other major critics such as LaSalle, Roger Ebert, James Berardinelli and Janet Maslin praised Grant's performance. Maslin wrote, Grant "rises touchingly to the film's most straightforward and meaningful encounters." In "The Mail on Sunday", William Leith found "Sense and Sensibility" to be "an extremely sharp, subtle, clever, lovely looking film" that was superior to the serial "Pride and Prejudice". Leith especially saved praise for the cast, writing that Grant plays his role "masterfully" and Harriet Walter "conveys sour bitchiness like you never thought she could." Jarr Carr of "The Boston Globe" thought that Lee "nail[ed] Austen's