What is the story Sense and Sensibility all about?

Sense and Sensibility is a British dramatic film directed by AngLee. The screenplay by Emma Thompson is based on the 1811 novel of the same name by Jane Austen.

Set in the English countryside, the film follows the loves and heartaches of sisters Elinor (Thompson) and Marianne Dashwood (Kate Winslet). The two have extremely divergent approaches to life: Elinor represents “sense" and believes in behaving with propriety and thoughtfulness, while Marianne represents “sensibility" and basks in her own emotions. Both women, however, experience confusion when their lovers, seemingly on the verge of proposing marriage, spurn them.

When Mr, Henry Dashwood dies, leaving all his money to his first  wife's son John Dashwood, his second wife and her three daughters are left with no permanent home and very little income. Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters ( Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret) are invited to stay with their distant relations, the Middletons, at Barton Park. Elinor is sad to leave their home at Norland because she has become closely attached to Edward Ferrars, the brother-in-law of her half-brother John. However, once at Barton Park, Elinor and Marianne discover many new acquaintances, including the retired officer and bachelor Colonel Brandon, and the gallant and impetuous John Willoughby, who rescues Marianne after she twists her ankle running down the hills of Barton in the rain. Willoughby openly and unabashedly courts Marianne, and together the two flaunt their attachment to one another, until Willoughby suddenly announces that he must depart for London on business, leaving Marianne lovesick and miserable. Meanwhile, Anne and Lucy Steele, two recently discovered relations of Lady Middleton's mother, Mrs.Jennings, arrive at Barton Park as guests of the Middletons. Lucy ingratiates herself to Elinor and informs her that she (Lucy) has been secretly engaged to Mr. Ferrars for a whole year. Elinor initially assumes that Lucy is referring to Edward's younger brother, Robert, but is shocked and pained to learn that Lucy is actually referring to her own beloved Edward.

Elinor and Marianne travel to London with Mrs. Jennings. Colonel Brandon informs Flinor that everyone in London is talking of an engagement between Willoughby and Marianne, though Marianne has not told her family of any such attachment, Marianne is anxious to be reunited with her beloved Willoughby, but when she sees him at a party in town, he cruelly rebuffs her and then sends her a letter denying that he ever had feelings for her, Colonel Brandon tells Elinor of Willoughby's history of callousness and debauchery, and Mrs, Jennings confirms that Willoughby, having squandered his fortune, has become engaged to the wealthy heiress Miss Grey.

Lucy's older sister inadvertently reveals the news of Lucy's secret engagement to Edward Ferrars. Edward's mother is outraged at the information and disinherits him, promising his fortune to Robert instead. Meanwhile, the Dashwood sisters visit family friends at Cleveland on their way home from London. At Cleveland, Marianne develops a severe cold while taking long walks in the rain, and she falls deathly ill.  Upon hearing of her illness, Willoughby comes to visit, attempting to explain his misconduct and seek forgiveness. Elinor pities him and ultimately shares his story with Marianne,  who  finally realizes that she behaved imprudently with Willoughby and could never have been happy with him anyway. Mrs. Dashwood and Colonel Brandon arrive at Cleveland and are relieved to learn that Marianne has begun to recover.

When the Dashwoods return to Barton, they learn from their man-servant that Lucy Steele and Mr Ferrars are engaged. They assume that he means Edward Ferrars and are thus unsurprised, but Edward himself soon arrives and corrects their misconception: it was Robert, not himself, whom the money-grubbing Lucy ultimately decided to marry. Thus, Edward is finally free to propose to his beloved Elinor, and not long after, Marianne and Colonel Brandon become engaged as well. The couples live together at Delaford and remain in close touch with their mother and younger sister at Barton Cottage.

Romance Film

While most films have some aspect of romance between characters (at least as a subplot), a romance film can be loosely defined as any film in which the central plot (the premise of the story) revolves around the romantic involvement of the story's protagonists. Common themes include the characters making decisions based on a newly found romantic attraction. The questions, “What am I living for" or “Why am I with my current partner" often arise.

Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus. Oftentimes, lovers in screen romances (often romantic dramas) face obstacles and the hazards of hardship, finances, physical illness, racial or social class status, occupation, psychological restraints, or family that threaten to break their union and attainment of love. As in all romantic relationships, tensions of day-to-day life, temptations(of infidelity), and differences in compatibility enter into the plots of romance films.

Romance films often explore the essential themes of love at first sight, young and older love, unrequited love, obsessive love, sentimental love, spiritual love, forbidden love, sexual and passionate love, sacrificial love, explosive and destructive love, and tragic love. Romance films serve as great escapes and fantasies for viewers, especially if the two people finally overcome their difficulties, declare their love, and experience life “happily ever after"--implied by a reunion and final kiss.

Many romance films do not have fairy-tale, wistful thinking stories or happy endings, although love serves as a shield against the harshness of the real world. Although melodramas and romantic comedies may have some romance in their plots, they usually subordinate the love element to their primary goal--to provide humor or serious drama.

Romance films are one of the forms in which societies reflect changing attitudes towards relationship between men and women, Indeed,one of the hallmarks of much romance is the “battle of sexes”, in which male and female stake out their respective territories and establish through the resolution of disagreement and misunderstanding what is mutually acceptable, The lovers in When Harry Met Sally, for example, are seen groping and fumbling their way towards a new kind of love based not on passion but on affectionate amiability; Sleepless in Seattle charts the new territory in which the single parent father and his potential lover find themselves; and Titanic combines contemporary approval of a woman's right to choose her own partner with a nostalgic perspective on the self-sacrificing chivalry of the traditional male, It is in this way that films become part of the broader dialogue that the societies hold about the roles that men and women play, and the identities they are expected to assume.

Romance is part of the attraction of the cinema, with its gorgeous stars and passionate on-screen (and off-screen) love affairs. This program looks not only at the famous romantic stars of classic Hollywood like Marilyn Monroe and later Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, but it also looks at the reflection of social attitudes towards sex, love, and marriage and how they have changed over time. A comparison between the suppressed feelings of Brief Encounter, the sexual freedom of A Bout deSouffle, and the sexual domesticity of Annie Hall provides a new an intriguing angle on the genre of romance films.