Sense and Sensibility (film) Austen adaptation of all time, opining that Lee "offered an acute outsider's insight into Austen in this compelling 1995 interpretation of the book [and] Emma Thompson delivered a charming turn as the older, wiser, Dashwood sister, Elinor." Journalist Zoe Williams credits Thompson as the person most responsible for Austen's popularity, explaining in 2007 that "Sense and Sensibility" "is the definitive Austen film and that's largely down to her." In 2011, "The Guardian" film critic Paul Laity named it his favourite film of all time, partly because of its "exceptional screenplay, crisply and skilfully done.". Devoney Looser reflected on the film
Sense and Sensibility of inheritance. Gene Ruoff's book "Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility" explores these issues in an entire book-length discussion on the novel. Ruoff's first two chapters deal extensively on the subject of wills and on the discourse of inheritance. These topics reveal what Ruoff calls "the cultural fixation on priority of male birth." According to Ruoff, male birth is by far the dominant issue in these legal conversations. Ruoff observes that, within the linear family, the order of male birth decides issues of eligibility and merit. When Robert Ferrars becomes the eldest son, Edward is no longer appealing to his "opportunistic