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) significant alterations to the characters of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood: in the novel, the former embodies "sense", i.e. "sensible" in our terms, and the latter, "sensibility", i.e. "sensitivity" in our terms. Audience members are meant to view self-restrained Elinor as the person in need of reform, rather than her impassioned sister. To heighten the contrast between them, Marianne and Willoughby's relationship includes an "erotic" invented scene in which the latter requests a lock of her hair – a direct contrast to Elinor's "reserved relationship" with Edward. Lee also distinguishes them through imagery – Marianne is often seen with musical instruments,