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Columbia/TriStar by Stan Schwartz Photos by Clive Coote

Emma Thompson, besides being an immensely gifted actress, is a very talented screenwriter. In both capacities, she displays warmth, charm and a fierce intelligence, altogether making for a potent mix of keenly good ... well, Sense and Sensibility. That, no doubt, is precisely what attracted Thompson to Jane Austen's novel, and that is also what makes her the perfect choice to adapt it for the screen and play Austen's heroine Elinor Dashwood. Not only is every moment of Ms. Thompson's performance informed by all the usual Thompson qualities, but so is every line of her screenplay.

Now I don't for an instant want to take any credit away from director Ang Lee (The Wedding Banquet, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman) whose work here is as clean and intelligent as ever. Yet, rightly or wrongly, I can't help but think it is Ms. Thompson's touch that is most heart-felt on the entire enterprise. Regardless of the perhaps academic question of who contributed what, suffice it to say that both Ms. Thompson and Mr. Lee have together conspired to create a lovely film that is wholly devoid of the museum-piece stuffiness that marks the worst of the Merchant-Ivory films (which most of us probably thought Sense and Sensibility would be like, and which it, most happily, is not).

Sense and Sensibility is the offering of the moment in the current Jane Austen craze, the story of three relatively penniless sisters in their pursuit of happiness which, in the case of the two eldest (Ms. Thompson and the engagingly strong-willed Kate Winslet), means finding a suitor. Machinations and misunderstandings of motives abound, but bottom-line is the standard 19th-century catch- 22: if you are poor, it is especially expedient to marry well, but how do you do that without a dowry to attract a wealthy suitor? Take that, together with the usual questions of whether to marry for love or money, stay within or outside your social class, or even whether to stay in the country or go to the Big City (London, that is), and lastly add a generous dose of gorgeous scenery, gorgeous costumes, and gorgeous suitors (principally, Hugh Grant, Greg Wise and Alan Rickman), and you will get a good idea of the terrain here. Understand, this is not Chekhov or Tolstoy. This is Jane Austen and all the proceedings are sicklied oe'r with the pale cast of gentility, without a tremendous amount of complexity on view. What is on view, however, is genuinely honest, amusing and surprisingly touching. And it certainly doesn't hurt to have a British cast who is letter-perfect down the line (It was a particular pleasure to see again such old favorites as Elizabeth Spriggs and Hugh Laurie.).

Go see Sense and Sensibility. It is quite simply a beautifully realized entertainment.