When Ang Lee adapted Sense and Sensibility in 1995, the Oscar went to Emma Thompson, though not for playing Elinor but for writing the screenplay. She spent five years reworking the novel, and she is still the only person to have won an Oscar for acting and another for writing. Ever since, hers has been the definitive version of the Dashwood sisters. Until now.
Thirty years later, Working Title, the company behind Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice and Autumn de Wilde’s Emma, returns to Austen with Georgia Oakley at the helm. The screenplay is by Australian novelist Diana Reid. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Elinor and Esmé Creed-Miles plays Marianne, alongside Caitríona Balfe, George MacKay, Frank Dillane and Fiona Shaw. The story is the one we know: two sisters left without an inheritance, one who keeps everything to herself and one who says it all, in a world where marrying well is the only way to stay in the game.
Oakley made her debut with Blue Jean, the story of a teacher forced to hide who she was in Thatcher’s England. A director who can film what cannot be said is the ideal match for Elinor, perhaps the most restrained character in all of Austen. Where the comedy of manners usually looks at the balls and the letters, Oakley looks at what happens between one line and the next, and that is what we can’t wait to see.
On Friday 23 October we premiere Sense and Sensibility at CineCiutat. The 5 pm screening will be followed by a conversation with Georgia Oakley, who will be with us in the cinema. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday 14 October.
Emma Thompson took five years to find her Elinor. We’ll have the chance to ask Georgia Oakley how she found hers.