Diana Reid has more to say about “Sense and Sensibility.” The screenwriter for Georgia Oakley’s 2026 adaptation starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles grew up watching the 1995 version, from screenwriter and star Emma Thompson. When she was initially pitched the idea to create her own interpretation, she wasn’t sure it could be done because of the success of the earlier adaptation. But she went back to the original text and found the heart of what she felt hadn’t been said on screen before: the love story between the Dashwood sisters.
Reid, who is primarily a novelist, took on her first screenplay from that perspective. In the process of adapting Jane Austen’s 400-plus-page novel into a just-over-two hours film, there were some scenes or characters left on the cutting room floor in order to leave room for the sisters to flourish. Reid was careful to make changes with integrity, not simply because she wanted her version to be different from the 1995 film.
While in Santa Fe, N.M. to be recognized as one of Variety‘s 2026 Screenwriters to Watch, Reid spoke with Variety about the book-to-screen changes, adapting a classic novel for a modern audience and why she thinks Austen is “almost like Shakespeare.” I’m a huge fan of the 1995 film. I grew up watching that film. When my producer India [Flint] suggested we try “Sense and Sensibility,” my instinct was that it couldn’t be done because that film had done it perfectly.
So, I went away and I reread the book and I rewatched that film, and I had to satisfy myself that I had something to say in the book that I didn’t think had been said on screen before. And I was actually surprised, to be honest, that I did find that in the book. When I reread the book, I was so struck by the extent to which it’s really a love story between two sisters.
I wanted to make sure that in the film, that always the spine of the narrative was their relationship. Then, having decided that yes, I would attempt it, it was a process of really paying attention to what resonated with me in the original, the elements of the novel that just almost didn’t require any adaptation at all, that just leap off the page, and making sure that they were really prominent, and then also being honest with myself about the bits that I felt didn’t track as well for a modern audience, and then thinking about how we could massage them while still remaining true to the spirit and the themes of the novel. From that, I worked out what I wanted to change, and then that gave me a structure, and that was what we pitched to Working Title.
That’s the lovely thing about basing it on a really good book. The characters are so fleshed out, so once you’ve pitched it and you have an idea for the structure, when Working Title said yes, I was able to just start at the beginning and then right to the end, and then I edited it. One thing that really struck both me and my producer was the Willoughby character and the relationship he has with Marianne.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
