That would actually be "Dame" Emma Thompson, whose work never ceases to amaze me or enchant me. She's one of those handful of actors whose work goes beyond portrayal to fully inhabited, without any tell-tale signs of performance or artifice. That's a very rare commodity. And she ranks with Vanessa Redgrave, Katherine Hepburn, Jean Arthur, Alfre Woodard, Barbra Stanwyck, Taraji P. Henson, Ingrid Bergman, and Viola Davis as actresses who are a treat to watch, personally.
Her double-duty as lead actress and chief scribe of Sense and Sensibility, though, has always knocked me out, because she took the work seriously enough to risk accentuating the comedy of it...something that the ardent frequently object to. You can't have light without dark, good without evil, and you can't have drama without a sense of the absurd (Well, you can, but it's a little melodramatic, which some folks like—but not me).
So, here is this scene from S and S, that has no comedy whatsoever. If there is, it's of a cruel variety and it is Thompson that risks it by making her practical and stiff-upper-lip Dashwood daughter, Elinor, completely lose it in this scene (only one of 2 1/2 instances where she allows herself to do so). Her Elinor suffers through so that her other family members do not, and she maintains a brave face throughout, but Thompson's facility playing it is so adroit that she allows the audience in to see the cracks of the veneer.
Like here...the almost mad fear she displays when pleading with her unconscious sister to pull through is heart-breaking, but so, also, is the look in her eyes when told by the doctor to "prepare" herself for the worst. It's an amalgamation of things—hurt, betrayal, anger, fear, loathing of the doctor, all mixed in her look back as he exits. A flash of...well, the five stages of grief in one composite stare.
It's open, it's vulnerable, it's strong, and it's...masterful.
The Story: The Dashwoods are in desperate straits. The death of the father, given the complexities of his relationships, has left his family by second wife (Gemma Jones) at loose ends. With an inheritance of only £500 a year, the second Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters—Elinor (Emma Thompson), Marianne (Kate Winslet) and Margaret (Emilie Francois)—must move from the palatial Dashwood estate, and, seemingly, go begging. The situation might be eased if the elder daughters could be married off, but their financial situation does not entice, and Elinor's affection for Edward Farrars (Hugh Grant) is thwarted, while Marianne forsakes a comfortable marriage to Colonel Brandon (Alan Rickman) for the more dashing but inscrutable John Willoughby (Greg Wise).
Returning from a visit to London, the Dashwoods stay at the estate of the Palmers, which overlooks Willoughby's estate. Marianne, heartbroken by his choosing to wed another, goes out in a driving rain, walking miles hoping to catch a glimpse of her lost love. When she does not return, she is found by the visiting Colonel Brandon, but she becomes gravelly ill with pnuemonia. Brandon, at Elinor's request, fetches a doctor. But, his analysis, one fears, is grave.
Commence...
INT. CLEVELAND - ELINOR AND MARIANNE'S BEDROOM - LATER
The room is very still. MARIANNE is pale as wax. DR HARRIS puts on his coat. ELINOR looks at him fearfully.
INT. CLEVELAND - ELINOR AND MARIANNE'S BEDROOM - LATER
Suddenly, almost unconsciously, she starts to heave with dry sobs, wrenched out of her, full of anguish and heartbreak and all the more painful for being tearless.
She falls to her knees by the bed, gulping for breath, taking MARIANNE's hand and kissing it again and again.
DISSOLVE:
Sense and Sensibility
Words by Emma Thompson (and Jane Austen)
Pictures by Michael Coulter and Ang Lee
Sense and Sensibility is available on DVD and Blu-Ray on Columbia-Tri-Star Home Video and Twilight Time.
Sadly, I could not find a video of this scene anywhere on the Internets, but give myself (and you) solace with Emma Thompson's wickedly funny acceptance speech for winning the Golden Globe for Best Adapted Screenplay:
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