title: Honda Fit

text: The Jazz went on sale in Europe in mid-2020 as a hybrid-only model, as Honda is phasing out conventional combustion engines in the region by 2022. The Crosstar model is also offered as a range-topping model. For the market, Honda stated the Jazz is capable of achieving on the WLTP combined cycle while emitting 102 g/km of CO in its standard form.


title: Honda Fit

text: The Chinese-market Fit is produced and sold by Guangqi Honda, and launched on 10 June 2020. It is available with two sub-models which are Sport and Crosstar. The Fit Sport featured sportier-looking front and rear bumpers compared to the Japanese or European model. Its twin model for the Chinese market is produced and sold by Dongfeng Honda under the name Honda Life. Both are fitted with a more pronounced rear bumpers compared to the Japanese-produced model, increasing its length to .


title: Honda Fit

text: The minor differences between the two are the front bumper designs and rear taillight tint colour (the Life has a clear smoked tint).


title: Honda Fit

text: Both the Chinese-market Fit and Life is powered by a 1.5-liter i-VTEC engine to a CVT transmission. There is no hybrid option offered in China.


title: Honda Fit

text: The fourth-generation Fit was launched in Singapore in January 2021 and in Hong Kong in March 2021 as the Jazz. It was also introduced in South Africa in June 2021 as the Fit, replacing the previous Jazz nameplate. The vehicle is also sold in some other countries such as New Zealand and Taiwan.


title: Honda Fit

text: The fourth-generation Fit is offered with a new hybrid powertrain option marketed as the e:HEV, the system uses Honda's dual-motor i-MMD (Intelligent Multi-Mode Drive) hybrid system. The system combines a 1.5-litre DOHC i-VTEC four-cylinder petrol engine that on its own makes from 5,600 to 6,400 rpm and from 4,500 to 5,000 rpm with two electric motors, with one of them acting as a generator to recharge the lithium-ion battery while the other is an electric propulsion motor capable of spinning at 13,300 rpm to handle low-speed acceleration. The engine sends power to the front wheels through a single fixed-gear ratio and a lock-up clutch, which is claimed to provide a smoother transfer of torque during acceleration. The setup is claimed to be more compact and refined compared to a planetary eCVT typically found in other hybrid vehicles. The system is rated at and of torque.


title: Honda Fit

text: The conventional petrol engine for the Japanese market is 1.3-litre naturally-aspirated i-VTEC four-cylinder, making 98 PS at 6,000 rpm and 118 Nm of torque at 5,000 rpm. It is mated to a CVT and a choice of either front or all-wheel drive.


title: Honda Fit

text: Japanese sales of the first-generation Fit greatly exceeded the original monthly sales target of 8,000 units on debut. By December 2001, it had outsold the Toyota Corolla, and ranked first in sales for nine out of twelve months in 2002. With a total sales of 250,790 for the year of 2002, it became the best-selling vehicle in Japan, which is a first for a Honda model. By September 2003, a little more than two years after the car was first sold, Fit reached 500,000 sales in Japanese market.


title: Honda Fit

text: After a minor model change that went on sale on June 11, 2004, Honda announced that, in about 2 weeks' period after its introduction, the company received orders from customers totaled around 13,000 units. By November 2007, in less than 6 months after minor model change, cumulative sales of Fit reached one million units in Japan.


title: Honda Fit

text: The second generation has been the top selling car in Japan since its official launch in November 2007. By September 2010, cumulative sales in Japan reached 1.5 million units.


title: Honda Fit

text: By December 2004, cumulative global sales of Fit/Jazz reached 1 million units. On July 17, 2007, Honda announced that as of the end of June more than 2 million Fit/Jazz units had been sold worldwide since its introduction. Japan accounts for the largest percentage of sales, with 962,000 units sold in the home market. Europe is next with 417,000 units. The United States accounts for 77,000 cars since introduction in 2006. Honda expected to sell 33,000 vehicles in the U.S. for the 2007 model year, but exceeded these expectations, and sold 40,000. Honda plans to put 70,000 Fit units on American roads for the 2008 model year.


title: Honda Fit

text: In the first half of 2008, Honda and other manufacturers were surprised by the rapid shift towards smaller cars in the United States. Sales of the Fit during the first five months of the year jumped 64% compared with that of 2007. Production of 2009 Fit for the U.S. market was to increase from 60,000 to 80,000 cars. Further increase in supply for the U.S. market is limited by Honda's production capacity of 500,000 a year for all markets.


title: Honda Fit

text: Honda announced that by the end of July 2009, worldwide sales of Fit/Jazz reached 3 million. One year later, global cumulative sales reached 3.5 million units in July 2010.


title: Honda Fit

text: Honda may have planned to use the name "Fitta", and it was planned to be released in Japan under that name in 2001. Because "Fitta" in Scandinavian languages is slang for vagina, Honda instead used "Jazz" in most markets and "Fit" in the Americas.


title: Honda Fit

text: In April 2006, Honda Australia promoted Honda Jazz with Village Green, an animated television commercial, in 30 second and 60 second versions, inspired by Thomas the Tank Engine.


title: Honda Fit

text: In April 2006, American Honda launched the Fit with six five-second and two 30-second TV ads, with the slogan 'The Fit Is Go'.


title: Honda Fit

text: Subsequent ad campaigns included "Mecha-Mosquitoes," (broke 9/21) "Defense Mechanism" (breaks 10/2) and "Bats" (breaks 9/28), produced by Digital Domain. As part of the campaign, the vehicle also appeared in "Gossip Girl", "90210", "America's Next Top Model", "Smallville" and "Everybody Hates Chris". Print ads "Gas Hogs" and "Cavernous" were featured in popular magazines. A dedicated marketing site was built to communicate top product features through games and interactive experiences. The campaign continued the slogan 'The Fit Is Go'.


title: Honda Fit

text: Honda Fit was one of the cars listed as eligible for the SCCA World Challenge's touring car B-spec class for the 2012 season onward.


title: Cinque Terre

text: The Cinque Terre (; , meaning "Five Lands") is a coastal area within Liguria, in the northwest of Italy. It lies in the west of La Spezia Province, and comprises five villages: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. The coastline, the five villages, and the surrounding hillsides are all part of the Cinque Terre National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


title: Cinque Terre

text: The Cinque Terre area is a popular tourist destination. Over the centuries, people have built terraces on the rugged, steep landscape right up to the cliffs that overlook the Ligurian Sea. Paths, trains, and boats connect the villages as cars can only reach them with great difficulty from the outside via narrow and precarious mountain roads.


title: Cinque Terre

text: Cinque Terre is mentioned in documents dating to the 11th century. Monterosso and Vernazza were settled first and the other villages grew later, whilst within the territory of the Republic of Genoa. In the 16th century, the inhabitants reinforced existing forts and built new defence towers to defend the area from attacks by the Turks. Cinque Terre experienced an economic decline from the 17th to 19th centuries, recovering when an arsenal was built in La Spezia and it gained a railway link to Genoa. The railway led to migration from the area and a decline in traditional industries until the growth of tourism from the 1970s onwards brought some prosperity.


title: Cinque Terre

text: The predominant crops in the area have been grapes and olives. Some fisherman were based in Monterosso, but the area's gaily painted fisherman's cottages were conceived in the late 1970s as a tourist attraction.


title: Cinque Terre

text: On 25 October 2011 torrential rain caused floods and mudslides in Cinque Terre. Nine people were killed and villages were severely damaged, particularly Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare.


title: Cinque Terre

text: The heavy rainfall event was favoured by the crisis of the traditional and less remunerative cultivation of terraced landscapes which sixty years before started a progressive decline and reduction of maintenance. It was partially balanced by the vegetation that spontaneously developed on abandoned terraces, a role underlined by a part of the existing scientific literature.


title: Cinque Terre

text: Access to Cinque Terre by car is limited. A road to Vernazza is very narrow and ends before the town. Trains run from La Spezia to all five towns within Cinque Terre, as well as to major regional and national destinations. The Cinque Terre railway stations are located on the Genoa-Pisa line. Most long-distance trains do not stop at all five Cinque Terre towns, making it necessary to transfer from La Spezia onto regional trains. Some intercity trains also stop at Monterosso Station.


title: Cinque Terre

text: A scheduled passenger ferry runs between Levanto and La Spezia, stopping at all of the main villages except Corniglia, which does not have a landing point, as it is not located on the coast. Boats also connect to Genoa's Old Harbour, Lerici, and Porto Venere.


title: Cinque Terre

text: Many walking trails run throughout the park and are named according to the SVA numbering system, however, it is common to hear trails referred to by their previous numbers, causing confusion to visitors.


title: Cinque Terre

text: The most popular path is known as the ("Azure Trail"), used to connect the five villages. Due to the unstable environment, landslides frequently cause portions of the trails to be closed. The "Sentiero Azzurro" section from Riomaggiore to Manarola called the ("Love Walk") has been closed since fall 2019 and is expected to reopen in 2024. It is still possible to walk between these villages, although the trail is both steeper and longer than the closed path along the waterfront.


title: Cinque Terre

text: From the poem, “The Lemons”, 1921. This is how the Nobel laureate Eugenio Montale, through his poetry, tells of the beauty of Monterosso and how the Cinque Terre must be discovered.


title: Cinque Terre

text: In 2013 Cinque Terre was one of the shooting locations of the movie The Wolf of Wall Street by Martin Scorsese.


title: Cinque Terre

text: The 2021 Disney/Pixar film Luca was set in the fictional town of Portorosso, on the Italian Riviera, placed west of Corniglia on a fictional map. Portorosso was inspired by and modeled after Cinque Terre.


title: Cinque Terre

text: The 2016 videogame Hitman featured the fictional town of Sapienza, which was inspired by Vernazza and other towns on the Ligurian shoreline.


title: Cinque Terre

text: Given its location on the Mediterranean, seafood is plentiful in the local cuisine. Anchovies of Monterosso are a local speciality designated with a Protected Designation of Origin status from the European Union. The mountainsides of the Cinque Terre are heavily terraced and are used to cultivate grapes and olives. This area, and the region of Liguria, as a whole, is known for pesto, a sauce made from basil leaves, garlic, salt, olive oil, pine nuts, and pecorino cheese. Focaccia is a particularly common locally baked bread product. Farinata, a typical snack found in bakeries and pizzerias, is a savoury and crunchy pancake made from a base of chick pea flour. The town of Corniglia is particularly popular for a gelato made from local honey ().


title: Cinque Terre

text: The grapes of the Cinque Terre are used to produce two locally made wines. The eponymous "Cinque Terre" and the "Sciachetrà" are both made using Bosco, Albarola, and Vermentino grapes. Both wines are produced by the , located between Manarola and Volastra. Other DOC producers are Forlini-Capellini, Walter de Batté, Buranco, Arrigoni.


title: Cinque Terre

text: In addition to wines, other popular local drinks include grappa, a brandy made with the pomace left from winemaking, and limoncino, a sweet, creamy liqueur made from lemons. It is served chilled after meals and often used in the preparation of desserts.


title: Cinque Terre

text: In 1998, the Italian Ministry for the Environment set up the Cinque Terre protected natural marine area to protect the natural environment and to promote socio-economic development compatible with the natural landscape of the area. Today, millions of visitors visit it every year. In 1999 the Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre was created to conserve the ecological balance, protect the landscape, and safeguard the anthropological values of the location. Nevertheless, dwindling interest in cultivation and maintenance of the terrace walls posed a long-term threat to the site, which was for this reason included in the 2000 and 2002 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund. The organization secured grants from American Express to support a study of the conservation of Cinque Terre. Following the study, a site management plan was created.


title: Morticia Addams

text: Morticia Addams (née Frump) is a fictional character from the "Addams Family" multimedia franchise created by American Charles Addams in 1933. She plays the role of the family's reserved matriarch, and she is often associated with witchcraft. Morticia Addams has been portrayed in several actresses in various "Addams Family" media, including Carolyn Jones in the television series "The Addams Family" (1964), Anjelica Huston in the films "The Addams Family" (1991) and "Addams Family Values" (1993), and Charlize Theron in the animated films "The Addams Family" (2019) and "The Addams Family 2" (2021)


title: Morticia Addams

text: Morticia first appeared in Charles Addams' newspaper cartoons as the stern, aloof matriarch of the family. She often appeared with the rest of the family, and was, along with Gomez and Grandmama, one of the few members to actually speak in the cartoons.


title: Morticia Addams

text: Morticia is the wife of Gomez Addams and mother of Wednesday, Pugsley and Pubert Addams. The character originated in the Charles Addams cartoons for "The New Yorker" magazine in the 1930s. In the cartoons, none of the family members had names. When the characters were adapted to the 1964 television series, Charles Addams' selection of her name was inspired by "mortician". Morticia's maiden name is "Frump" and she has an older sister named Ophelia (also played by Carolyn Jones in the original TV series). In the television series, her mother (Uncle Fester's sister) was named Hester Frump (played by Margaret Hamilton). Her mother-in-law is Grandmama Addams. In the 1990s Addams Family films, familial relationships are changed for the characters of Grandmama and Fester. Grandmama is actually Morticia's mother, not Gomez's, while Fester is Gomez's brother, not Morticia's uncle.


title: Morticia Addams

text: Morticia is described as a witch; she is slim, with extremely pale skin and long flowing straight black hair. In one episode she is seen wearing a black pointed hat. She commonly wears black hobble dresses to match her hair, tightly form fitting, with a fringe of octopus-like cloth "tentacles" at the lower hem. According to Wednesday, Morticia applies baking powder to her face instead of actual makeup. In each episode, she easily allures her husband Gomez by speaking French (or any other foreign language for that matter). Morticia is musically inclined, and is often seen freely strumming a Japanese shamisen. She frequently enjoys cutting the buds off of roses, which she discards (keeping only the stems), likes cutting out paper dolls with three heads and making sweaters with three arms, collecting the mail from the hand-in-the-box Thing, and cooking unusual concoctions for her husband, including eye of newt. Her personal pet is Cleopatra, a fictitious breed of carnivorous plant called an African Strangler, to which she feeds hamburgers and various other meats.


title: Morticia Addams

text: Morticia's family tree can be traced back to Salem, Massachusetts, and witchcraft is also implied at times in the television series. For example, Morticia likes to "smoke," an activity that does not involve cigarettes or cigars (such as her husband frequently enjoys), but smoke instead emanates directly from her.


title: Morticia Addams

text: In 2009, she was included in Yahoo!'s Top 10 TV Moms from Six Decades of Television for the time period 1964–1966. AOL named her one of the 100 Most Memorable Female TV Characters.


title: Morticia Addams

text: Morticia was portrayed by Carolyn Jones in the TV series, and "Halloween with the New Addams Family" TV movie, and by Anjelica Huston in "The Addams Family" and its sequel "Addams Family Values". Huston's portrayal of Morticia was always illuminated by a ghostly glow around the eyes, which became most noticeable when she was standing or lying in dim light. Daryl Hannah played Morticia in the 1998 film "Addams Family Reunion". Canadian actress Ellie Harvie played Morticia in the 1998-1999 revival series, "The New Addams Family". In the first animated series made in 1973, Morticia was voiced by Janet Waldo. Jones also voiced this character in an episode of "The New Scooby-Doo Movies" that featured the family. In the 1992 animated series, she was voiced by Nancy Linari. In the 2010 Broadway musical, Morticia was portrayed by Bebe Neuwirth. Brooke Shields replaced her in the role of Morticia on June 28, 2011.


title: Morticia Addams

text: Morticia was also one of the inspirations for the Disney character Magica De Spell, first designed and drawn by Carl Barks for the Donald Duck universe. Natasha Fatale, a villain from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, was also based on Morticia's design.


title: Morticia Addams

text: Morticia is voiced by Charlize Theron in "The Addams Family" (2019). Theron reprised her role in the sequel, which was released on October 1, 2021.


title: Morticia Addams

text: Catherine Zeta-Jones portrays Morticia in the Netflix series "Wednesday". Both she and Gomez first met at Nevermore Academy, a boarding school for supernatural people (also known as "Outcasts"), it is revealed in flashbacks that she and Gomez were involved in the death of fellow student Garrett Gates, who tried to kill Gomez in a blind rage. Principal Weems was very jealous of Morticia, since they were roommates, due to her many achievements.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 period drama film directed by Ang Lee and based on Jane Austen's 1811 novel of the same name. Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and stars as Elinor Dashwood, while Kate Winslet plays Elinor's younger sister Marianne. The story follows the Dashwood sisters, members of a wealthy English family of landed gentry, as they must deal with circumstances of sudden destitution. They are forced to seek financial security through marriage. Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman play their respective suitors.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Producer Lindsay Doran, a longtime admirer of Austen's novel, hired Thompson to write the screenplay. She spent five years drafting numerous revisions, continually working on the script between other films as well as into production of the film itself. Studios were nervous that Thompson—a first-time screenwriter—was the credited writer, but Columbia Pictures agreed to distribute the film. Though initially intending to have another actress portray Elinor, Thompson was persuaded to take the role. Thompson's screenplay exaggerated the Dashwood family's wealth to make their later scenes of poverty more apparent to modern audiences. It also altered the traits of the male leads to make them more appealing to contemporary viewers. Elinor and Marianne's different characteristics were emphasised through imagery and invented scenes. Lee was selected as director, both for his work in the 1993 film "The Wedding Banquet" and because Doran believed he would help the film appeal to a wider audience. Lee was given a budget of $16 million.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: "Sense and Sensibility" was released on 13 December 1995, in the United States. A commercial success, earning $135 million worldwide, the film garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews upon release and received many accolades, including three awards and eleven nominations at the 1995 British Academy Film Awards. It earned seven Academy Awards nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Actress. Thompson received the award for Best Adapted Screenplay, becoming the only person to have won Academy Awards for both acting and screenwriting. "Sense and Sensibility" contributed to a resurgence in popularity for Austen's works, and has led to many more productions in similar genres. It continues to be recognised as one of the best Austen adaptations of all time.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: When Mr. Dashwood dies, his wife and three daughters — Elinor, Marianne and Margaret — are left with an inheritance of only £500 a year; the bulk of his estate, Norland Park, is left to his son John from a previous marriage. John and his greedy, snobbish wife Fanny immediately install themselves in the large house; Fanny invites her brother Edward Ferrars to stay with them. She frets about the budding friendship between Edward and Elinor, believing he can do better, and does everything she can to prevent it from developing into a romantic attachment.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Sir John Middleton, a cousin of the widowed Mrs. Dashwood, offers her a small cottage house on his estate, Barton Park in Devonshire. She and her daughters move in, and are frequent guests at Barton Park. Marianne meets the older Colonel Brandon, who falls in love with her at first sight. Competing for her affections is the dashing John Willoughby, with whom Marianne falls in love. On the morning she expects him to propose marriage to her, he instead leaves hurriedly for London. Unbeknownst to the Dashwood family, Brandon's ward Beth, illegitimate daughter of his former love Eliza, is pregnant with Willoughby's child; Willoughby's aunt, Lady Allen, has disinherited him upon discovering this.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Sir John's mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings, invites her daughter and son-in-law, Mr and Mrs Palmer, to visit. They bring with them the impoverished Lucy Steele. Lucy confides in Elinor that she and Edward have been engaged secretly for five years, thus dashing Elinor's hopes of a future with him. Mrs. Jennings takes Lucy, Elinor, and Marianne to London, where they meet Willoughby at a ball. He barely acknowledges their acquaintance, and they learn he is engaged to the extremely wealthy Miss Grey. Marianne is inconsolable. The engagement of Edward and Lucy also comes to light. Edward's mother demands that he break off the engagement. When he honourably refuses, his fortune is taken from him and given to his younger brother Robert.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: On their way home to Devonshire, Elinor and Marianne stop for the night at the country estate of the Palmers, who live near Willoughby. Marianne cannot resist going to see Willoughby's estate and walks a long way in a torrential rain to do so. As a result, she becomes seriously ill and is nursed back to health by Elinor after being rescued by Colonel Brandon. Marianne recovers, and the sisters return home. They learn that Miss Steele has become Mrs. Ferrars and assume that she married Edward. However, Edward arrives to explain that Miss Steele has unexpectedly wed Robert Ferrars and Edward is thus released from his engagement. Edward proposes to Elinor and becomes a vicar, whilst Marianne marries Colonel Brandon.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: In 1989, Lindsay Doran, the new president of production company Mirage Enterprises, was on a company retreat brainstorming potential film ideas when she suggested the Jane Austen novel "Sense and Sensibility" to her colleagues. It had been adapted twice, most recently in a 1981 television serial. Doran was a longtime fan of the novel, and had vowed in her youth to adapt it if she ever entered the film industry. She chose to adapt this particular Austen work because there were two female leads. Doran stated that "all of [Austen's] books are funny and emotional, but "Sense and Sensibility" is the best movie story because it's full of twists and turns. Just when you think you know what's going on, everything is different. It's got real suspense, but it's not a thriller. Irresistible." She also praised the novel for possessing "wonderful characters ... "three" strong love stories, surprising plot twists, good jokes, relevant themes, and a heart-stopping ending."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Prior to being hired at Mirage, the producer had spent years looking for a suitable screenwriter – someone who was "equally strong in the areas of satire and romance" and could think in Austen's language "almost as naturally as he or she could think in the language of the twentieth century." Doran read screenplays by English and American writers until she came across a series of comedic skits, often in period settings, that actress Emma Thompson had written. Doran believed the humour and style of writing was "exactly what [she'd] been searching for." Thompson and Doran were already working together on Mirage's 1991 film "Dead Again." A week after its completion, the producer selected Thompson to adapt "Sense and Sensibility", although she knew that Thompson had never written a screenplay. Also a fan of Austen, Thompson first suggested they adapt "Persuasion" or "Emma" before agreeing to Doran's proposal. The actress found that "Sense and Sensibility" contained more action than she had remembered, and decided it would translate well to drama.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Thompson spent five years writing and revising the screenplay, both during and between shooting other films. Believing the novel's language to be "far more arcane than in [Austen's] later books," Thompson sought to simplify the dialogue while retaining the "elegance and wit of the original." She observed that in a screenwriting process, a first draft often had "a lot of good stuff in it" but needed to be edited, and second drafts would "almost certainly be rubbish ... because you get into a panic." Thompson credited Doran that she could "help me, nourish me and mentor me through that process ... I learned about screenwriting at her feet."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Thompson's first draft was more than three hundred handwritten pages, which required her to reduce it to a more manageable length. She found the romances to be the most difficult to "juggle", and her draft received some criticism for the way it presented Willoughby and Edward. Doran later recalled the work was criticized for not getting underway until Willoughby's arrival, with Edward sidelined as backstory. Thompson and Doran quickly realised that "if we didn't meet Edward and do the work and take that twenty minutes to set up those people ... then it wasn't going to work." At the same time, Thompson wished to avoid depicting "a couple of women waiting around for men"; gradually her screenplay focused as much on the Dashwood sisters' relationship with each other as it did with their romantic interests.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: With the draft screenplay, Doran pitched the idea to various studios in order to finance the film, but found that many were wary of the beginner Thompson as the screenwriter. She was considered a risk, as her experience was as an actress who had never written a film script. Columbia Pictures executive Amy Pascal supported Thompson's work, and agreed to sign as the producer and distributor.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: As Thompson mentioned on the BBC program "QI" in 2009, at one point in the writing process a computer failure almost lost the entire work. In panic Thompson called fellow actor and close friend Stephen Fry, the host of "QI" and a self-professed "geek". After seven hours, Fry was able to recover the documents from the device while Thompson had tea with Hugh Laurie who was at Fry's house at the time.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Taiwanese director Ang Lee was hired as a result of his work in the 1993 family comedy film "The Wedding Banquet", which he co-wrote, produced, and directed. He was not familiar with Jane Austen. Doran felt that Lee's films, which depicted complex family relationships amidst a social comedy context, were a good fit with Austen's storylines. She recalled, "The idea of a foreign director was intellectually appealing even though it was very scary to have someone who didn't have English as his first language." The producer sent Lee a copy of Thompson's script, to which he replied that he was "cautiously interested". Fifteen directors were interviewed, but according to Doran, Lee was one of the few who recognised Austen's humour; he told them he wanted the film to "break people's hearts so badly that they'll still be recovering from it two months later."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: From the beginning, Doran wanted "Sense and Sensibility" to appeal to both a core audience of Austen aficionados as well as younger viewers attracted to romantic comedy films. She felt that Lee's involvement prevented the film from becoming "just some little English movie" that appealed only to local audiences instead of to the wider world. Lee said,


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: "I thought they were crazy: I was brought up in Taiwan, what do I know about 19th-century England? About halfway through the script it started to make sense why they chose me. In my films I've been trying to mix social satire and family drama. I realised that all along I had been trying to do Jane Austen without knowing it. Jane Austen was my destiny. I just had to overcome the cultural barrier."Because Thompson and Doran had worked on the screenplay for so long, Lee described himself at the time as a "director for hire", as he was unsure of his role and position. He spent six months in England "learn[ing] how to make this movie, how to do a period film, culturally ... and how to adapt to the major league film industry."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: In January 1995, Thompson presented a draft to Lee, Doran, co-producer Laurie Borg, and others working on the production, and spent the next two months editing the screenplay based upon their feedback. Thompson would continue making revisions throughout production of the film, including altering scenes to meet budgetary concerns, adding dialogue changes, and changing certain aspects to better fit the actors. Brandon's confession scene, for instance, initially included flashbacks and stylised imagery before Thompson decided it was "emotionally more interesting to let Brandon tell the story himself and find it difficult."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Thompson initially hoped that Doran would cast sisters Natasha and Joely Richardson as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Lee and Columbia wanted Thompson herself, now a "big-deal movie star" after her critically successful role in the 1992 film "Howards End", to play Elinor. The actress replied that at the age of thirty-five, she was too old for the nineteen-year-old character. Lee suggested Elinor's age be changed to twenty-seven, which would also have made the difficult reality of spinsterhood easier for modern audiences to understand. Thompson agreed, later stating that she was "desperate to get into a corset and act it and stop thinking about it as a script."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: The formal casting process began in February 1995, though some of the actors met with Thompson the previous year to help her conceptualise the script. Lee eventually cast all but one of them: Hugh Grant (as Edward Ferrars), Robert Hardy (as Sir John Middleton), Harriet Walter (as Fanny Ferrars Dashwood), Imelda Staunton (as Charlotte Jennings Palmer), and Hugh Laurie (as Mr. Palmer). Amanda Root had also worked with Thompson on the screenplay, but had already committed to star in the 1995 film "Persuasion". Commenting on the casting of Laurie, whom she had known for years, Thompson has said, "There is no one [else] on the planet who could capture Mr. Palmer's disenchantment and redemption so perfectly, and make it funny."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Thompson wrote the part of Edward Ferrars with Grant in mind, and he agreed to receive a lower salary in line with the film's budget. Grant called her screenplay "genius", explaining "I've always been a philistine about Jane Austen herself, and I think Emma's script is miles better than the book and much more amusing." Grant's casting was criticised by the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA), whose representatives said that he was too handsome for the part. Actress Kate Winslet initially intended to audition for the role of Marianne but Lee disliked her work in the 1994 drama film "Heavenly Creatures;" she auditioned for the lesser part of Lucy Steele. Winslet pretended she had heard that the audition was still for Marianne, and won the part based on a single reading. Thompson later said that Winslet, only nineteen years old, approached the part "energised and open, realistic, intelligent, and tremendous fun." The role helped Winslet become recognised as a significant actress.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Also appearing in the film was Alan Rickman, who portrayed Colonel Brandon. Thompson was pleased that Rickman could express the "extraordinary sweetness [of] his nature," as he had played "Machiavellian types so effectively" in other films. Greg Wise was cast as Marianne's other romantic interest, John Willoughby, his most noted role thus far. Twelve-year-old Emilie François, appearing as Margaret Dashwood, was one of the last people cast in the production; she had no professional acting experience. Thompson praised the young actress in her production diaries, "Emilie has a natural quick intelligence that informs every movement – she creates spontaneity in all of us just by being there." Other cast members included Gemma Jones as Mrs. Dashwood, James Fleet as John Dashwood, Elizabeth Spriggs as Mrs. Jennings, Imogen Stubbs as Lucy Steele, Richard Lumsden as Robert Ferrars, Tom Wilkinson as Mr. Dashwood, and Lone Vidahl as Miss Grey.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: According to Austen scholar Linda Troost, the costumes used in "Sense and Sensibility" helped emphasise the class and status of the various characters, particularly among the Dashwoods. They were created by Jenny Beavan and John Bright, a team of designers best known for Merchant Ivory films who began working together in 1984. The two attempted to create accurate period dress, and featured the "fuller, classical look and colours of the late 18th century." They found inspiration in the works of the English artists Thomas Rowlandson, John Hopper, and George Romney, and also reviewed fashion plates stored in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The main costumes and hats were manufactured at Cosprop, a London-based costumer company.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: To achieve the tightly wound curls fashionably inspired by Greek art, some of the actresses wore wigs while others employed heated hair twists and slept in pin curls. Fanny, the snobbiest of the characters, possesses the tightest of curls but has less of a Greek silhouette, a reflection of her wealth and silliness. Beavan stated that Fanny and Mrs. Jennings "couldn't quite give up the frills," and instead draped themselves in lace, fur, feathers, jewellery, and rich fabrics. Conversely, sensible Elinor opts for simpler accessories, such as a long gold chain and a straw hat. Fanny's shallow personality is also reflected in "flashy, colourful" dresses, while Edward's buttoned-up appearance represents his "repressed" personality, with little visible skin. Each of the 100 extras used in the London ballroom scene, depicting "soldiers and lawyers to fops and dowagers," don visually distinct costumes.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: For Brandon's costumes, Beavan and Bright consulted with Thompson and Lee and decided to have him project an image of "experienced and dependable masculinity." Brandon is first seen in black, but later he wears sporting gear in the form of corduroy jackets and shirtsleeves. His rescue of Marianne has him transforming into the "romantic Byronic hero", sporting an unbuttoned shirt and loose cravat. In conjunction with his tragic backstory, Brandon's "flattering" costumes help his appeal to the audience. Beavan and Bright's work on the film earned them a nomination for Best Costume Design at the 68th Academy Awards.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: The film was budgeted at $16 million, the largest Ang Lee had yet received as well as the largest awarded to an Austen film that decade. In the wake of the success of Columbia's 1994 film "Little Women", the American studio authorised Lee's "relatively high budget" out of an expectation that it would be another cross-over hit and appeal to multiple audiences, thus yielding high box office returns. Nevertheless, Doran considered it a "low budget film", and many of the ideas Thompson and Lee came up with – such as an early dramatic scene depicting Mr. Dashwood's bloody fall from a horse – were deemed unfilmable from a cost perspective.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: According to Thompson, Lee "arrived on set with the whole movie in his head". Rather than focus on period details, he wanted the film to concentrate on telling a good story. He showed the cast a selection of films adapted from classic novels, including "Barry Lyndon" and "The Age of Innocence", which he believed to be "great movies; everybody worships the art work, [but] it's not what we want to do". Lee criticised the latter film for lacking energy, in contrast to the "passionate tale" of "Sense and Sensibility".


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: The cast and crew experienced "slight culture shock" with Lee on a number of occasions. He expected the assistant directors to be the "tough ones" and keep production on schedule, while they expected the same of him; this led to a slower schedule in the early stages of production. Additionally, according to Thompson, the director became "deeply hurt and confused" when she and Grant made suggestions for certain scenes, which was something that was not done in his native country. Lee thought his authority was being undermined and lost sleep, though this was gradually resolved as he became used to their methods. The cast "grew to trust his instincts so completely", making fewer and fewer suggestions. Co-producer James Schamus stated that Lee also adapted by becoming more verbal and willing to express his opinion.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Lee became known for his "frightening" tendency not to "mince words". He often had the cast do numerous takes for a scene to get the perfect shot, and was not afraid to call something "boring" if he disliked it. Thompson later recalled that Lee would "always come up to you and say something unexpectedly crushing", such as asking her not to "look so old". She also commented, however, that "he doesn't indulge us but is always kind when we fail". Due to Thompson's extensive acting experience, Lee encouraged her to practice t'ai chi to "help her relax [and] make her do things simpler". Other actors soon joined them in meditating – according to Doran, it "was pretty interesting. There were all these pillows on the floor and these pale-looking actors were saying, 'What have we got ourselves into?' [Lee] was more focused on body language than any director I've ever seen or heard of." He suggested Winslet read books of poetry and report back to him to best understand her character. He also had Thompson and Winslet live together to develop their characters' sisterly bond. Many of the cast took lessons in etiquette and riding side-saddle.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Lee found that in contrast to Chinese cinema, he had to dissuade many of the actors from using a "very stagy, very English tradition. Instead of just being observed like a human being and getting sympathy, they feel they have to do things, they have to carry the movie." Grant in particular often had to be restrained from giving an "over-the-top" performance; Lee later recalled that the actor is "a show stealer. You can't stop that. I let him do, I have to say, less 'star' stuff, the Hugh Grant thing ... and not [let] the movie serve him, which is probably what he's used to now." For the scene in which Elinor learns Edward is unmarried, Thompson found inspiration from her reaction to her father's death. Grant was unaware that Thompson would cry through most of his speech, and the actress attempted to reassure him, "'There's no other way, and I promise you it'll work, and it will be funny as well as being touching.' And he said, 'Oh, all right,' and he was very good about it." Lee had one demand for the scene, that Thompson avoid the temptation to turn her head towards the camera.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Production of "Sense and Sensibility" was scheduled for fifty-eight days, though this was eventually extended to sixty-five. Filming commenced in mid-April 1995 at a number of locations in Devon, beginning with Saltram House (standing in for Norland Park), where Winslet and Jones shot the first scene of the production: when their characters read about Barton Cottage. As Saltram was a National Trust property, Schamus had to sign a contract before production began, and staff with the organisation remained on set to carefully monitor the filming. Production later returned to shoot several more scenes, finishing there on 29 April. The second location of filming, Flete House, stood in for part of Mrs. Jennings' London estate, where Edward first sees Elinor with Lucy. Representing Barton Cottage was a Flete Estate stone cottage called Efford House in Holbeton, which Thompson called "one of the most beautiful spots we've ever seen."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Early May saw production at the "exquisite" St Mary's Church in Berry Pomeroy for the final wedding scene. From the tenth to the twelfth of May, Marianne's first rescue sequence, depicting her encounter with Willoughby, was shot. Logistics were difficult, as the scene was set upon a hill during a rainy day. Lee shot around fifty takes, with the actors becoming soaked under rain machines; this led to Winslet eventually collapsing from hypothermia. Further problems occurred midway through filming, when Winslet contracted phlebitis in her leg, developed a limp, and sprained her wrist after falling down a staircase.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: From May to July, production took place at a number of other National Trust estates and stately homes across England. Trafalgar House and Wilton House in Wiltshire stood in for the grounds of Barton Park and the London Ballroom respectively. Mompesson House, an eighteenth-century townhouse located in Salisbury, represented Mrs. Jennings' sumptuous townhouse. Sixteenth-century Montacute House in Somerset was the setting for the Palmer estate of Cleveland House. Further scenes were shot at Compton Castle in Devon (Mr Willoughby's estate) and at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Composer Patrick Doyle, who had previously worked with his friend Emma Thompson in the films "Henry V", "Much Ado About Nothing", and "Dead Again", was hired to produce the music for "Sense and Sensibility". Asked by the director to select existing music or compose new "gentle" melodies, Doyle wrote a score that reflected the film's events. He explained, "You had this middle-class English motif, and with the music you would have occasional outbursts of emotion." Doyle explains that the score "becomes a little more grown-up" as the story progresses to one of "maturity and an emotional catharsis." The score contains romantic elements and has been described by National Public Radio as a "restricted compass ... of emotion" with "instruments [that] blend together in a gentle sort of way". They also noted that as a reflection of the story, the score is a "little wistful ... and sentimental."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Two songs are sung by Marianne in the film, with lyrics adapted from seventeenth-century poems. Lee believed that the two songs conveyed the "vision of duality" visible both in the novel and script. In his opinion, the second song expressed Marianne's "mature acceptance," intertwined with a "sense of melancholy". The melody of "Weep You No More Sad Fountains", Marianne's first song, appears in the opening credits, while her second song's melody features again during the ending credits, this time sung by dramatic soprano Jane Eaglen. The songs were written by Doyle before filming began. The composer received his first Academy Award nomination for his score.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Thompson and Doran discussed how much of the love stories to depict, as the male characters spend much of the novel away from the Dashwood sisters. The screenwriter had to carefully balance the amount of screentime she gave to the male leads, noting in her film production diary that such a decision would "very much lie in the editing." Thompson wrote "hundreds of different versions" of romantic storylines. She considered having Edward re-appear midway through the film before deciding that it would not work as "there was nothing for him to do." Thompson also opted to exclude the duel scene between Brandon and Willoughby, which is described in the novel, because it "only seemed to subtract from the mystery." She and Doran agonised about when and how to reveal Brandon's backstory, as they wanted to prevent viewers from becoming bored. Thompson described the process of reminding audiences of Edward and Brandon as "keeping plates spinning".


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: A scene was shot of Brandon finding his ward in a poverty-stricken area in London, but this was excluded from the film. Thompson's script included a scene of Elinor and Edward kissing, as the studio "couldn't stand the idea of these two people who we've been watching all the way through not kissing." It was one of the first scenes cut during editing: the original version was over three hours, Lee was less interested in the story's romance, and Thompson found a kissing scene to be inappropriate. The scene was included in marketing materials and the film trailer. Thompson and Doran also cut out a scene depicting Willoughby as remorseful when Marianne is sick. Doran said that despite it "being one of the great scenes in book history," they could not get it to fit into the film.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Tim Squyres edited the film, his fourth collaboration with Ang Lee. He reflected in 2013 about the editing process:


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: It was the first film that I had done with Ang that was all in English, and it's Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, and Hugh Grant — these great, great actors. When you get footage like that, you realise that your job is really not technical. It was my job to look at something that Emma Thompson had done and say, "Eh, that's not good, I'll use this other one instead." And not only was I allowed to pass judgment on these tremendous actors, I was required to.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Scholar Louise Flavin has noted that Thompson's screenplay contains significant alterations to the characters of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood: in the novel, the former embodies "sense", i.e. "sensible" in our terms, and the latter, "sensibility", i.e. "sensitivity" in our terms. Audience members are meant to view self-restrained Elinor as the person in need of reform, rather than her impassioned sister. To heighten the contrast between them, Marianne and Willoughby's relationship includes an "erotic" invented scene in which the latter requests a lock of her hair – a direct contrast to Elinor's "reserved relationship" with Edward. Lee also distinguishes them through imagery – Marianne is often seen with musical instruments, near open windows, and outside, while Elinor is pictured in door frames. Another character altered for modern viewers is Margaret Dashwood, who conveys "the frustrations that a girl of our times might feel at the limitations facing her as a woman in the early nineteenth century." Thompson uses Margaret for exposition in order to detail contemporary attitudes and customs. For instance, Elinor explains to a curious Margaret – and by extension, the audience – why their half-brother inherits the Dashwood estate. Margaret's altered storyline, giving her an interest in fencing and geography, also allows audience members to see the "feminine" side of Edward and Brandon, as they become father or brother figures to her. The film omits the characters of Lady Middleton and her children, as well as that of Ann Steele, Lucy's sister.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: When adapting the characters for film, Thompson found that in the novel, "Edward and Brandon are quite shadowy and absent for long periods," and that "making the male characters effective was one of the biggest problems. Willoughby is really the only male who springs out in three dimensions." Several major male characters in "Sense and Sensibility" were consequently altered significantly from the novel in an effort to appeal to contemporary audiences. Grant's Edward and Rickman's Brandon are "ideal" modern males who display an obvious love of children as well as "pleasing manners", especially when contrasted with Palmer. Thompson's script both expanded and omitted scenes from Edward's storyline, including the deletion of an early scene in which Elinor assumes that a lock of hair found in Edward's possession is hers, when it belongs to Lucy. He was made more fully realised and honourable than in the novel to increase his appeal to viewers. To gradually show viewers why Brandon is worthy of Marianne's love, Thompson's screenplay has his storyline mirroring Willoughby's; they are similar in appearance, share a love of music and poetry, and rescue Marianne in the rain while on horseback.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Thompson viewed the novel as a story of "love and money," noting that some people needed one more than the other. During the writing process, executive producer Sydney Pollack stressed that the film be understandable to modern audiences, and that it be made clear why the Dashwood sisters could not just obtain a job. "I'm from Indiana; if I get it, everyone gets it," he said. Thompson believed that Austen was just as comprehensible in a different century, "You don't think people are still concerned with marriage, money, romance, finding a partner?" She was keen to emphasise the realism of the Dashwoods' predicament in her screenplay, and inserted scenes to make the differences in wealth more apparent to modern audiences. Thompson made the Dashwood family richer than in the book and added elements to help contrast their early wealth with their later financial predicament; for instance, because it might have been confusing to viewers that one could be poor and still have servants, Elinor is made to address a large group of servants at Norland Park early in the film for viewers to remember when they see their few staff at Barton Cottage. Lee also sought to emphasise social class and the limitations it placed on the protagonists. Lee conveys this in part when Willoughby publicly rejects Marianne; he returns to a more lavishly furnished room, a symbol of the wealth she has lost. "Family dramas," he stated, "are all about conflict, about family obligations versus free will."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: The film's theme of class has attracted much scholarly attention. Carole Dole noted that class constitutes an important element in Austen's stories and is "impossible" to avoid when adapting her novels. According to Dole, Lee's film contains an "ambiguous treatment of class values" that stresses social differences but "underplays the consequences of the class distinctions so important in the novel"; for instance, Edward's story ends upon his proposal to Elinor, with no attention paid to how they will live on his small annual income from the vicarage. Louise Flavin believed that Lee used the houses to represent their occupants' class and character: the Dashwood sisters' decline in eligibility is represented through the contrast between the spacious rooms of Norland Park and those of the isolated, cramped Barton Cottage. James Thompson criticised what he described as the anaesthetised "mélange of disconnected picture postcard-gift-calendar-perfect scenes," in which little connection is made between "individual subjects and the land that supports them." Andrew Higson argued that while "Sense and Sensibility" includes commentary on sex and gender, it fails to pursue issues of class. Thompson's script, he wrote, displays a "sense of impoverishment [but is] confined to the still privileged lifestyle of the disinherited Dashwoods. The broader class system is pretty much taken for granted." The ending visual image of flying gold coins, depicted during Marianne's wedding, has also drawn attention; Marsha McCreadie noted that it serves as a "visual wrap-up and emblem of the merger between money and marriage."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Gender has been seen as another major theme of the film, often intersecting with class. Penny Gay observed that Elinor's early dialogue with Edward about "feel[ing] idle and useless ... [with] no hope whatsoever of any occupation" reflected Thompson's background as a "middle class, Cambridge-educated feminist." Conversely, Dole wrote that Thompson's version of Elinor "has a surprising anti-feminist element to it," as she appears more dependent on men than the original character; the film presents her as repressed, resulting in her emotional breakdown with Edward. Linda Troost opined that Lee's production prominently features "radical feminist and economic issues" while "paradoxically endorsing the conservative concept of marriage as a woman's goal in life." Despite this "mixed political agenda," Troost believed that the film's faithfulness to the traditional heritage film genre is evident through its use of locations, costumes, and attention to details, all of which also emphasize class and status. Gay and Julianne Pidduck stated that gender differences are expressed by showing the female characters indoors, while their male counterparts are depicted outside confidently moving throughout the countryside. Nora Stovel observed that Thompson "emphasises Austen's feminist satire on Regency gender economics," drawing attention not only to the financial plight of the Dashwoods but also to eighteenth-century women in general.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: In the United States, Sony and Columbia Pictures released "Sense and Sensibility" on a slow schedule compared to mainstream films, first premiering it on 13 December 1995. Believing that a limited release would position the film both as an "exclusive quality picture" and increase its chances of winning Academy Awards, Columbia dictated that its first weekend involve only seventy cinemas in the US; it opened in eleventh place in terms of box office takings and earned $721,341. To benefit from the publicity surrounding potential Academy Award candidates and increase its chance of earning nominations, the film was released within "Oscar season". The number of theatres showing "Sense and Sensibility" was slowly expanded, with particular surges when its seven Oscar nominations were announced and at the time of the ceremony in late March, until it was present in over one thousand cinemas across the US. By the end of its American release, "Sense and Sensibility" had been watched by more than eight million people, garnering an "impressive" total domestic gross of $43,182,776.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: On the basis of Austen's reputation as a serious author, the producers were able to rely on high-brow publications to help market their film. Near the time of its US release, large spreads in "The New York Review of Books", "Vanity Fair", "Film Comment", and other media outlets featured columns on Lee's production. In late December, "Time" magazine declared it and "Persuasion" to be the best films of 1995. Andrew Higson referred to all this media exposure as a "marketing coup" because it meant the film "was reaching one of its target audiences." Meanwhile, most promotional images featured the film as a "sort of chick flick in period garb." New Market Press published Thompson's screenplay and film diary; in its first printing, the hard cover edition sold 28,500 copies in the US. British publisher Bloomsbury released a paperback edition of the novel containing film pictures, same title design, and the cast's names on the cover, whilst Signet Publishing in the US printed 250,000 copies instead of the typical 10,000 a year; actress Julie Christie read the novel in an audiobook released by Penguin Audiobooks. "Sense and Sensibility" increased dramatically in terms of its book sales, ultimately hitting tenth place on "The New York Times" Best Seller list for paperbacks in February 1996.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: In the United Kingdom, "Sense and Sensibility" was released on 23 February 1996 in order to "take advantage of the hype from "Pride and Prejudice"", another popular Austen adaptation recently broadcast. Columbia Tristar's head of UK marketing noted that "if there was any territory this film was going to work, it was in the UK." After receiving positive responses at previews, marketing strategies focused on selling it as both a costume drama and as a film attractive to mainstream audiences. Attention was also paid to marketing "Sense and Sensibility" internationally. Because the entire production cycle had consistently emphasised it as being "bigger" than a normal British period drama literary film, distributors avoided labelling it as "just another English period film." Instead, marketing materials featured quotations from populist newspapers such as the "Daily Mail", which compared the film to "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994). It opened in the UK on 102 screens and grossed £629,152 in its opening weekend, placing fourth at the box office. It went on to gross £13,605,627 in the UK, the seventh highest-grossing film for the year. It was watched by more than ten million viewers in Europe. Worldwide, the film ultimately grossed $134,582,776, a sum that reflected its commercial success. It had the largest box office gross out of the Austen adaptations of the 1990s.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: "Sense and Sensibility" received overwhelmingly positive reviews from film critics, and was included on more than a hundred top-ten of the year lists. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 97% approval rating based on 64 reviews, with an average rating of 8.00/10. The website's consensus reads, ""Sense and Sensibility" is an uncommonly deft, very funny Jane Austen adaptation, marked by Emma Thompson's finely tuned performance." On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 84 out of 100 based on 21 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A" on scale of A to F.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Writing for "Variety" magazine, Todd McCarthy observed that the film's success was assisted by its "highly skilled cast of actors," as well as its choice of Lee as director. McCarthy clarified, "Although [Lee's] previously revealed talents for dramatizing conflicting social and generational traditions will no doubt be noted, Lee's achievement here with such foreign material is simply well beyond what anyone could have expected and may well be posited as the cinematic equivalent of Kazuo Ishiguro writing "The Remains of the Day"."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" lauded the film for containing a sense of urgency "that keeps the pedestrian problems of an unremarkable 18th century family immediate and personal." LaSalle concluded that the adaptation has a "right balance of irony and warmth. The result is a film of great understanding and emotional clarity, filmed with an elegance that never calls attention to itself." Film critic John Simon praised most of the film, particularly focusing on Thompson's performance, though he criticised Grant for being "much too adorably bumbling ... he urgently needs to chasten his onscreen persona, and stop hunching his shoulders like a dromedary." Other major critics such as LaSalle, Roger Ebert, James Berardinelli and Janet Maslin praised Grant's performance. Maslin wrote, Grant "rises touchingly to the film's most straightforward and meaningful encounters."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Jay Carr of "The Boston Globe" thought that Lee "nail[ed] Austen's acute social observation and tangy satire," and viewed Thompson and Winslet's age discrepancy as a positive element that helped feed the dichotomy of sense and sensibility. The "Radio Times" David Parkinson was equally appreciative of Lee's direction, writing that he "avoid[s] the chocolate-box visuals that cheapen so many British costume dramas" and "brings a refreshing period realism to the tale of two sisters that allows Emma Thompson's respectful Oscar-winning script to flourish."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Although as others have pointed out the adaption is not faithful to Austen's novel: "Thompson plays fast and loose with Austen, cutting huge chunks out of the novel, adding whole scenes; a mere six or seven lines from the book actually make it into the film".


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Out of the 1990s Austen adaptations, "Sense and Sensibility" received the most recognition from Hollywood. It garnered seven nominations at the 68th Academy Awards ceremony, where Thompson received the Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published, making her the only person to have won an Oscar for both her writing and acting (Thompson won the Best Actress award for "Howards End", in 1993). The film also was the recipient of twelve nominations at the 49th British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Actress in a Leading Role (for Thompson), and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (for Winslet). In addition, the film won the Golden Bear at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival, making Lee the first director to win this twice.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Despite the recognition given to the film, Lee was not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director (though he was nominated for the Golden Globe). The scholar Shu-mei Shih and the journalist Clarence Page have attributed this snub to Hollywood's racism against Lee, and Chinese cinema in general. Lee sought to avoid turning his omission into a scandal and specifically asked the Taiwan state media not to make it a "national issue," explaining that he endured more pressure when forced to act as his country's representative.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: Following the theatrical release of "Persuasion" by a few months, "Sense and Sensibility" was one of the first English-language period adaptations of an Austen novel to be released in cinemas in over fifty years, the previous being the 1940 film "Pride and Prejudice". The year 1995 saw a resurgence of popularity for Austen's works, as "Sense and Sensibility" and the serial "Pride and Prejudice" both rocketed to critical and financial success. The two adaptations helped draw more attention to the previously little-known 1995 television film "Persuasion", and led to additional Austen adaptations in the following years. In 1995 and 1996, six Austen adaptations were released onto film or television. The filming of these productions led to a surge in popularity of many of the landmarks and locations depicted; according to the scholar Sue Parrill, they became "instant meccas for viewers."


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: When "Sense and Sensibility" was released in cinemas in the US, "Town & Country" published a six-page article entitled "Jane Austen's England", which focused on the landscape and sites shown in the film. A press book released by the studio, as well as Thompson's published screenplay and diaries, listed all the filming locations and helped to boost tourism. Saltram House for instance was carefully promoted during the film's release, and saw a 57 percent increase in attendance. In 1996, JASNA's membership increased by fifty percent. The popularity of both "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice" led to the BBC and ITV releasing their Austen adaptations from the 1970s and 1980s onto DVD.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: As the mid-1990s included adaptations of four Austen novels, there were few of her works to adapt. Andrew Higson argues that this resulted in a "variety of successors" in the genres of romantic comedy and costume drama, as well as with films featuring strong female characters. Cited examples include "Mrs Dalloway" (1997), "Mrs. Brown" (1997), "Shakespeare in Love" (1998), and "Bridget Jones's Diary" (2001). In 2008, Andrew Davies, the screenwriter of "Pride and Prejudice", adapted "Sense and Sensibility" for television. As a reaction to what he said was Lee's overly "sentimental" film, this production features events found in the novel but excluded from Thompson's screenplay, such as Willoughby's seduction of Eliza and his duel with Brandon. It also features actors closer to the ages in the source material.


title: Sense and Sensibility (film)

text: "Sense and Sensibility" has maintained its popularity into the twenty-first century. In 2004, Louise Flavin referred to the 1995 film as "the most popular of the Austen film adaptations," and in 2008, "The Independent" ranked it as the third-best Austen adaptation of all time, opining that Lee "offered an acute outsider's insight into Austen in this compelling 1995 interpretation of the book [and] Emma Thompson delivered a charming turn as the older, wiser, Dashwood sister, Elinor." Journalist Zoe Williams credits Thompson as the person most responsible for Austen's popularity, explaining in 2007 that "Sense and Sensibility" "is the definitive Austen film and that's largely down to her." In 2011, "The Guardian" film critic Paul Laity named it his favourite film of all time, partly because of its "exceptional screenplay, crisply and skilfully done.". Devoney Looser reflected on the film in "The Atlantic" on the 20th anniversary of its release, arguing that the film served as "a turning point" for "pro-feminist masculinity" in Austen adaptations.


title: Simona Halep

text: Simona Halep (; born 27 September 1991) is a Romanian professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles twice between 2017 and 2019, for a total of 64 weeks, which ranks eleventh in the history of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) rankings. Halep was the year-end No. 1 in 2017 and 2018. She has won two Grand Slam singles titles: the 2018 French Open and the 2019 Wimbledon Championships. From 27 January 2014 to 8 August 2021, Halep was ranked in the top 10 for 373 consecutive weeks, the eighth-longest streak in WTA history. During this seven-year span, she finished each year ranked no lower than No. 4. She has won 24 WTA Tour singles titles and finished runner-up 18 times.


title: Simona Halep

text: A French Open junior champion and former junior world No. 1, Halep first broke into the world's top 50 at the end of 2011, the top 20 in August 2013, and the top 10 in January 2014. She won her first six WTA titles in the same calendar year in 2013, and was the first to do so since Steffi Graf in 1986. This led to her being named the WTA Most Improved Player of the year. Halep reached three major finals at the 2014 French Open, 2017 French Open, and 2018 Australian Open before winning her first major title at the 2018 French Open over Sloane Stephens. Halep also finished runner-up at the 2014 WTA Finals to Serena Williams, despite thrashing Williams in the round-robin stage. She did not defeat Williams a second time until the final of the 2019 Wimbledon Championships.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep was named the WTA Most Popular Player of the Year in 2014 and 2015, as well as the WTA Fan Favorite Singles Player of the Year in 2017, 2018, and 2019. She is a recipient of the Patriarchal Cross of Romania and the Order of the Star of Romania, and was named an honorary citizen of Bucharest. She is the third Romanian to reach the top 10 of the WTA rankings after Virginia Ruzici and Irina Spîrlea, and the second Romanian woman to win a major singles title after Ruzici. She is also the first Romanian woman to be ranked world No. 1 and the first Romanian to win a Wimbledon singles title. Halep is regarded as one of the best returners on the WTA Tour, while also building her game around being aggressive and being able to hit winners from defensive positions.


title: Simona Halep

text: Simona Halep was born on 27 September 1991 in Constanța, Romania to Stere and Tania Halep, who are of Aromanian descent. She has a brother Nicolae who is five and a half years older. Halep's father played lower-division football for AS Săgeata Stejaru and worked as a zootechnics technician before becoming the owner of a dairy products factory. He developed an interest in supporting his children's athletic ventures as a consequence of wondering how far he would have progressed as a footballer if his parents could have provided him with more financial support when he was growing up. When Halep was four years old, she started playing tennis after attending one of her brother's training sessions. Although her brother stopped playing the sport after a few years, Halep began practising twice a week with local coach Hugh Ghass until she was six, from which point on she practiced daily. Although she focused on tennis, she also played football and handball while growing up. Growing up in Constanța, she routinely trained on the beaches and in the water of the Black sea. As a teenager, she was partly sponsored by Corneliu Idu, the owner of the leading tennis club in Constanța. When Halep was sixteen, she moved away from her family to train in Bucharest.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep is a former world No. 1 junior. She began playing on the ITF Junior Circuit in 2005 at the age of 13 and finished runner-up at the low-level Grade 4 Mamaia-Sen Junior ITF Tournament in Romania in her second career event. The following year, Halep won all four ITF singles events she entered, including the Mamaia-Sen tournament which was reclassified to mid-level Grade 3. She also represented Romania at the Junior Fed Cup that year alongside Irina-Camelia Begu and Andreea Mitu. The team finished in ninth place. Halep moved up to higher-level events in 2007 and won her first and only Grade 1 title at the Perin Memorial in Umag in April. She also made her junior Grand Slam debut that year, losing in the third round at the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep improved her junior Grand Slam performance in 2008, her last year on the junior tour. She entered just four events that year. In Australia, she finished runner-up to Arantxa Rus at Nottinghill and then lost to Australian Jessica Moore in the semifinals of the Australian Open. After focusing on professional tournaments, Halep returned to the junior circuit in May and won her first Grade A title at the Trofeo Bonfiglio without dropping a set. She then finished her junior career by winning her only junior Grand Slam title at the French Open. As the ninth seed, she defeated the fifth-seed Moore and the second-seed Rus en route to reaching the final without losing a set. Halep defeated compatriot Elena Bogdan in three sets in the final to become the second Romanian girl to win a junior Grand Slam singles title after Mariana Simionescu won the 1974 French Open. With the title, she also became the top-ranked junior in the world.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep turned pro in 2006 and started her professional career playing low-level $10K ITF Women's Circuit events in Romania in 2006 and 2007. She won both her first two ITF singles and doubles titles in back-to-back weeks in Bucharest in May 2007. After accomplishing this feat a third time the following year, Halep won her first $25K singles title in Sweden in June 2008. She began playing more higher-level events once she finished her junior career, reaching a $50K final in 2009 in Makarska. Halep also attempted to qualify for WTA events twice that year, losing in the second qualifying round at both the Open GDF Suez and the French Open. Towards the end of the season, she defeated 96 Angelique Kerber for her first top 100 victory and also reached the semifinals of a $50K event in Minsk to make her debut in the top 200 of the WTA rankings.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep made her WTA main-draw debut in April 2010, qualifying for three consecutive events. In her first WTA tournament, she reached the quarterfinals at the Andalucia Tennis Experience, defeating compatriot and world No. 36, Sorana Cîrstea before losing to No. 16, Flavia Pennetta. At her third event, Halep made her first career WTA final, finishing runner-up at the Morocco Open to Iveta Benešová. This success helped her rise from No. 166 at the beginning of April to No. 110 in the first set of rankings in May. Later that month, Halep made her Grand Slam debut at the French Open, losing her opening round match in straight sets to No. 7, Samantha Stosur after reaching the main draw through qualifying. After losing in qualifying at Wimbledon, Halep made her top 100 debut in July following a semifinal at the $100K Open de Biarritz. With her rise in the rankings, she was directly accepted into a Grand Slam main draw for the first time at the US Open, where she was drawn against No. 4, Jelena Janković, another top-ten opponent. Unlike at the French Open, Halep won the second set and had a chance to serve for the match at 5–4 in the third, but ultimately lost that game and the match, which lasted two hours and twenty minutes in severe heat. Halep's best result of the year after the US Open was a final at the $100K Torhout Ladies Open, which helped her finish the season with a year-end ranking of No. 81 in the world.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep played almost exclusively WTA Tour events in 2011. She won her first career Grand Slam matches at the Australian Open, defeating Anne Kremer and No. 23 Alisa Kleybanova to reach the third round. During the clay court season, Halep defended her runner-up finish at the Morocco Open from the previous year, again losing in the final, this time to Alberta Brianti. Nonetheless, she struggled in the other clay court tournaments, only recording one more match win, which came in the opening round at the 2011 French Open. She also reached the second round at Wimbledon, losing in three sets to seventh-seed and defending champion Serena Williams. At the 2012 Olympics, she competed in the women's singles, losing in the first round, and the women's doubles, with Sorana Cîrstea, also losing in the first round. During the US Open Series, Halep qualified for the Rogers Cup and recorded her first top 20 victory against No. 15 Svetlana Kuznetsova in the first round. At the US Open, Halep then recorded her first top 10 victory over No. 6 Li Na in her opening match, despite playing with an ankle sprain she suffered at the Rogers Cup. Despite a loss to Carla Suárez Navarro in the next round, this result put Halep in the top 50 for the first time. She finished the year at No. 47 in the world.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep maintained a steady ranking throughout 2012, rising no higher than No. 37, falling no lower than No. 63, and finishing the year at No. 47 for the second consecutive year. She won just one Grand Slam singles match all year, which came at the US Open. She won more than two matches at an event just twice, the first at the Morocco Open where she made the semifinals in April and the second at the Brussels Open where she made the final in May. Although Halep defeated top seed Anabel Medina Garrigues in Morocco, she was upset by qualifier Kiki Bertens, who prevented her from reaching a third straight final at the event. The final in Brussels was Halep's first at the Premier level. She defeated No. 21 Jelena Jankovic and No. 16 Dominika Cibulková before losing to top seed and world No. 3 Agnieszka Radwańska.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep had a slow start to the year, only winning multiple matches at a tournament once before May. Her first breakthrough came at the Italian Open, where she reached the semifinals as a qualifier. She defeated three top 20 players at the Premier 5 event, including No. 4 Agnieszka Radwańska, before losing to world No. 1 Serena Williams who was on a 23-match win streak. Halep continued to struggle at the Grand Slams, losing in the opening round at both the Australian Open and the French Open, while making the second round at Wimbledon. Nonetheless, she began to dominate the lower level tournaments, winning her first three WTA titles at the International level across June and July. Her first two titles came in back-to-back weeks at the Nuremberg Cup on clay over Andrea Petkovic and at the Rosmalen Grass Court Championships on grass over Kirsten Flipkens. After a third title at the Budapest Grand Prix, she climbed up to No. 23 in the world.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep won her fourth title at the New Haven Open, defeating No. 8, Caroline Wozniacki and No. 9, Petra Kvitová in the semifinals and final respectively. This was her first title at the Premier level and put her in the top 20 for the first time. Halep continued her success at the US Open, where she was seeded at a Grand Slam event for the first time at No. 21. She made it to the fourth round, her best result at a Grand Slam event to date. Halep won a fifth title at the Premier-level Kremlin Cup, defeating Stosur in the final. At the end of the season, she qualified for the WTA Tournament of Champions, an event for the highest-ranked WTA title-holders who did not qualify for the WTA Finals. Halep won this event as well, defeating No. 16 Ana Ivanovic and No. 19 Stosur in the knockout rounds. With her sixth WTA title, she finished the year at No. 11 in the world and was named the WTA Most Improved Player of the Year. She was second on the tour in singles titles behind only Serena Williams who had 11, and was the first woman to win her first six WTA titles in the same season since Steffi Graf in 1986. Halep attributed her improvement to developing a more positive mindset, saying, "What changed was that I allowed myself to be relaxed on the court by taking the pressure off. I told myself to enjoy it and play with pleasure."


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep greatly improved her Grand Slam results in 2014. She reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the Australian Open with a victory over No. 8, Jelena Janković, where she was upset by No. 20, Dominika Cibulková. With this result, Halep made her debut in the top 10 of the WTA rankings. The next month, Halep won her first Premier 5 title at the Qatar Open, defeating three top 10 opponents in the last three rounds, including No. 9 Angelique Kerber in the final. After a semifinal at the Indian Wells Open, she rose to No. 5 in the world, making her the highest-ranked Romanian in the history of the WTA rankings. During the clay court season, Halep reached the two biggest finals of her career to date. She finished runner-up to Maria Sharapova at both the Premier Mandatory Madrid Open and the French Open. She had not lost a set before the French Open final, making her the first woman to reach her maiden Grand Slam final without dropping a set since Martina Hingis at the 1997 Australian Open. Both finals went to three sets, and the French Open final lasted over three hours. With these two runner-ups, Halep moved up to No. 3.


title: Simona Halep

text: The next month, Halep came close to another Grand Slam final at Wimbledon, but was upset in the semifinals by No. 13, Eugenie Bouchard, after suffering an ankle injury in the first set. Nonetheless, she recovered in time to play inaugural Bucharest Open in her home country of Romania a week later. She won the event for her second and last title of the year, defeating Roberta Vinci in the final. This helped her rise to No. 2 in the world in August. Although she was the second seed at the US Open, she was upset in straight sets by veteran qualifier Mirjana Lučić-Baroni. The next month, she withdrew from the Beijing Open in the quarterfinals due to a hip injury. She did not play another event until the WTA Tour Championships, where she qualified for the first time. Halep won two of three matches in her round robin group to advance to the knockout rounds, defeating No. 5, Eugenie Bouchard and No. 1, Serena Williams before losing her last match to No. 7, Ana Ivanovic. The victory over Williams was her first over a current world No. 1 and was also tied for the most lopsided loss of Williams' career at the time, as Halep held her to just two games. Halep won her semifinal against No. 6 Agnieszka Radwanska to set up a rematch with Williams in the final. In a complete reversal of the round robin match, Williams won the final easily, limiting Halep to just three games. Halep finished the year at No. 3 in the world, behind Williams and Sharapova.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep had a strong start to 2015, reaching at least the quarterfinals in her first six events. After a title in her first event of the year at the Shenzhen Open, she lost in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open for the second straight year, this time to No. 11, Ekaterina Makarova. Nonetheless, Halep rebounded to win her next two events, the Dubai Tennis Championships and the Indian Wells Open. The former was her second Premier 5 title and tenth WTA title in total, while the latter was her first Premier Mandatory title and biggest title to date. She extended her win streak to 14 matches at the Miami Open where she lost in the semifinals to world No. 1, Serena Williams. Halep did not reach any finals during the clay court season, with her best results being two semifinals at the Stuttgart Open and the Italian Open. She was two points away from advancing to the final in Rome, but could not break Carla Suárez Navarro at 5–4 in the third set and ended up losing. In the second round of the French Open, she was upset by Mirjana Lučić-Baroni for the second time in the last three majors. She performed even worse at Wimbledon, being upset by No. 106 Jana Čepelová while struggling with a blister on her foot.


title: Simona Halep

text: After Wimbledon, Halep took more than a month off before returning to tournament play for the North American hard court season. She rebounded from her results off the hard courts and finished runner-up at both Premier 5 events in August, the Canadian Open and the Cincinnati Open. Halep had won the second set of the final in Canada against Belinda Bencic, but ultimately needed to retire midway through the third set due to heat illness two and a half hours into the match. She recovered in time to play Cincinnati, but lost in the final to world No. 1 Serena Williams. Halep then produced her best Grand Slam result of the year, a semifinal at the US Open. She was upset at the event by the eventual champion and No. 26, Flavia Pennetta. At the end of the season, Halep qualified for the WTA Finals and became the top seed at the event after Williams withdrew. Although she defeated Pennetta in her opening match, she lost her last two round robin matches to No. 4, Maria Sharapova and No. 6, Agnieszka Radwańska and did not advance out of the group. Nonetheless, she finished the season with a career-best year-end ranking of No. 2 in the world.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep underperformed at the Grand Slam events in 2016. She also had a slow start to the year, highlighted by an opening round loss at the Australian Open to qualifier Zhang Shuai who had not won a Grand Slam match in 14 attempts. She dealt with both an achilles injury and infections in the first two months of the season, and delayed nose surgery so she could play in the Fed Cup. In March, Halep lost in the quarterfinals at both Premier Mandatory events, the Indian Wells Open and the Miami Open. Having reached at least the semifinals at both events the previous year, she fell out of the top 5 in the rankings for the first time in over a year and a half. During the clay-court season, Halep won her second career Premier Mandatory title, defeating Dominika Cibulková in the final of the Madrid Open to return to the top 5. She did not continue this form into the French Open, losing to Samantha Stosur in the fourth round in a controversial match where play continued in rainy conditions. Halep fared better at Wimbledon, losing to eventual runner-up No. 4 Angelique Kerber in the quarterfinals.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep followed up Wimbledon with back-to-back titles at the Bucharest Open and the Canadian Open, her last two titles of the year. She also made her first career WTA doubles final at the Canadian Open, finishing runner-up to Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina alongside compatriot Monica Niculescu. In singles, Halep was able to defeat Kerber in Canada in the semifinals, and won in the final against No. 12 Madison Keys. However, she lost to Kerber in the semifinals at her next event, the Cincinnati Open. At the US Open, Halep made another Grand Slam quarterfinal, losing to world No. 1, Serena Williams in a tight three-set match. Her best result of the last stage of the year was a semifinal at the Wuhan Open, where she lost to eventual champion Petra Kvitová. For the second straight year, Halep ended the season by failing to advance out of her round robin group at the WTA Finals. After a win against No. 7 Keys and a loss to No. 1 Kerber, Halep only needed to win a set against No. 8 Cibulková to advance, but lost in straight sets. She finished the season ranked No. 4 in the world.


title: Simona Halep

text: For the second straight season, Halep had a slow start to the year. She once again lost in the opening round at the Australian Open to Shelby Rogers and did not win multiple matches at an event until the Miami Open in late March where she made the quarterfinals. During this time, she was having issues with her left knee. Halep rebounded during the clay court season, reaching at least the semifinals at all four events she entered. She defended her title at the Madrid Open to secure a Premier Mandatory title for the third consecutive year. She also made the final the following week at the Premier 5 Italian Open, but finished runner-up to No. 11 Elina Svitolina. At the French Open, she faced Svitolina again in the quarterfinals and fell behind a set and 5–1 before coming from behind to take the second set in a tiebreak and ultimately win the match. She also needed to save a match point in the second set tiebreak. Halep defeated world No. 3 Karolína Plíšková in the semifinals in three sets to make her second final at the French Open. Heavily favoured against unseeded Jeļena Ostapenko, Halep led the final by a set and a break before Ostapenko came from behind to win in three sets. With the runner-up, she moved back to No. 2 in the world. At Wimbledon, Halep lost in the quarterfinals to British No. 1 Johanna Konta, who had defeated her earlier in the year at Miami as well. With Serena Williams falling out of the top 10 following Wimbledon due to pregnancy, Halep became the longest-tenured member of the WTA top 10.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep continued to produce strong results in the second half of the season. She made it to the semifinals at the Canadian Open, losing again to Svitolina. She fared better at the Cincinnati Open, finishing runner-up to Garbiñe Muguruza. However, at the US Open, Halep was given a difficult draw in the first round against former champion Maria Sharapova, who was unseeded because she was returning from a doping suspension. Sharapova defeated Halep in three sets, ending her streak of reaching the quarterfinals at 10 consecutive events. Nonetheless, Halep rebounded and reached another Premier Mandatory final at the China Open. She defeated Sharapova during the event, but finished runner-up to No. 15 Caroline Garcia. Despite the loss, Halep became the world No. 1 for the first time, taking the ranking from Muguruza. She is the first Romanian woman to hold the No. 1 ranking, and the seventh to do so without having first won a Grand Slam tournament. At the 2017 WTA Finals, Halep could not advance out of her round robin group for the third consecutive year. After a win against No. 8 Garcia and a loss to No. 6 Wozniacki, Halep needed to defeat No. 4 Svitolina to advance, but lost in straight sets. She finished the season as the world No. 1.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep kept the No. 1 ranking for nearly the entire year, only losing it for four weeks in February. She began the season by winning both the singles and doubles titles at the Shenzhen Open. This was her first WTA doubles title and came alongside compatriot Irina-Camelia Begu against the top-seeded team of Barbora Krejčíková and Kateřina Siniaková. She also defeated Siniakova in the singles final.


title: Simona Halep

text: Having not won a match at the Australian Open in three years, Halep made it all the way to her third Grand Slam final. During the event, she played two of the ten best matches of the year according to "Tennis.com". In the third round, Halep defeated Lauren Davis in a three-hour and forty-five minute match that ended 15–13 in the third set. She needed to save three match points on her serve at 11–12. Halep and Davis tied the Australian Open record for most games played in the women's singles main draw match with 48. It was also the third longest women's singles match in Australian Open history. The match was ranked as the third-best women's match of the year and seventh-best overall. In the semifinals, Halep defeated No. 16, Angelique Kerber in a two-hour and twenty minute match that ended 9–7 in the third set. After being broken while having a chance to serve the match at 5–3 in the final set, Halep had two break points for the match on Kerber's serve but could not convert. Kerber then broke Halep for a second consecutive service game and had two match points on her own serve, before Halep broke back to level the set at six games each. Halep would break Kerber two service games later on her second match point of the game. The match was ranked as the best women's match of the year and third best overall. Halep faced No. 2, Caroline Wozniacki in the final and lost in another tight three-set match, also losing the No. 1 ranking to Wozniacki. Halep reached two more hard court semifinals in the next two months at the Qatar Open and the Indian Wells Open. She regained the No. 1 ranking in late February.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep did not win any titles on clay in the lead-up to the French Open, with her best result being a runner-up finish at the Italian Open to Elina Svitolina in a rematch of the previous year's final. Karolina Plíšková ended Halep's 15-match win steak at the Madrid Open in the quarterfinals. At the French Open, Halep made her second Grand Slam final in a row and second consecutive French Open final, defeating No. 12 Angelique Kerber and No. 3 Garbiñe Muguruza in the quarterfinals and semifinals. She then came from a set and a break down against No. 10 Sloane Stephens to win her first career Grand Slam title. She became just the sixth player to win both the girls' singles title and the women's singles title at the French Open, as well as the fourth woman to win a Grand Slam singles title after three or more runner-ups. The only grass court event Halep played was Wimbledon, where she was upset by world No. 48 Hsieh Su-wei despite having a match point.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep continued her success on hard courts after Wimbledon, reaching the final at both the Canadian Open and the Cincinnati Open. She won the Canadian Open against Sloane Stephens in three sets in a rematch of the French Open final. The match was ranked as the second-best women's match of the year and the fifth-best overall. Together with her two Australian Open classics, Halep won the three best women's matches of the year according to "Tennis.com". She nearly won back-to-back Premier 5 titles the following week, but finished runner-up to No. 17 Kiki Bertens despite having a match point in the second-set tiebreak. However, Halep would end up losing her last three matches of the year, including her opening match at the US Open against No. 44 Kaia Kanepi. She ended her season in late September after dealing with an achilles injury and then a back injury.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep recovered from her back injury in time for the start of the 2019 season. She lost her first match back at the Sydney International to the eventual runner-up Ashleigh Barty. She received a difficult draw at the Australian Open and lost in the fourth round to Serena Williams, who had finished runner-up at the previous two Grand Slam events. With this result, she also lost the No. 1 ranking. Halep finished runner-up to Elise Mertens at her next event, the Qatar Open. She made another hard court semifinal at the Miami Open. Halep's best result on clay was another final at the Madrid Open, where she lost to Kiki Bertens. For the first time in three years, she did not reach the final at the French Open, losing in the quarterfinals to Amanda Anisimova. As a result, Halep fell to No. 8 in the rankings.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep played in one grass court tune-up, losing in the quarterfinals of the Eastbourne International to Angelique Kerber. At Wimbledon, Halep made it to the final as the seventh seed, only dropping one set in the second round against compatriot Mihaela Buzărnescu. She did not face a seeded opponent until she defeated No. 8 Elina Svitolina in the semifinals. Halep entered the final against Serena Williams as an underdog, having won just one match against her in ten meetings. Nonetheless, she won the championship easily in under an hour, losing just two games in each set, and committing only three unforced errors in the entire match, the fewest ever recorded in a Grand Slam final. She became the first Romanian to win a Wimbledon singles title and rose back to world No. 4.


title: Simona Halep

text: After Wimbledon, Halep only played the two Premier 5 tournaments in the lead-up to the US Open, retiring in the quarterfinals of the Canadian Open and losing in third round to eventual champion Madison Keys at the Cincinnati Open. Although she won her first-round match at the US Open for the first time in three years, she was upset in the following round by Taylor Townsend. Halep closed out her season at the WTA Finals, where she reunited with coach Darren Cahill. After opening with a victory over No. 4 Bianca Andreescu, she did not advance out of her round robin group after losing to No. 8 Elina Svitolina and No. 2 Karolína Plíšková. She finished the season at No. 4 in the world.


title: Simona Halep

text: Ajla Tomljanovic, but lost in the quarterfinals to Aryna Sabalenka. At the Australian Open, Halep reached the semifinals, where she lost to Garbine Muguruza, after having defeated Jennifer Brady, Harriet Dart, Yulia Putintseva, Elise Mertens, and Anett Kontaveit.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep won her 20th WTA title at Dubai, defeating Ons Jabeur, Aryna Sabalenka, and Jennifer Brady, before defeating Elena Rybakina in a tight third-set tiebreak in the final.


title: Simona Halep

text: In August, she won her 21st WTA title, at the Prague Open, where she defeated Elise Mertens in the final. Her 22nd title followed in September, when she beat an injured Karolína Plíšková in the Italian Open final.


title: Simona Halep

text: At the French Open, Halep was the heavy favorite and won her first three matches in straight sets, until losing to eventual champion Iga Świątek in the fourth round whilst only winning three games. As a result, she missed out on regaining the No. 1 ranking.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep started 2021 at Gippsland, where she was defeated in the quarterfinals by Ekaterina Alexandrova. At the Australian Open, she also reached the quarterfinals, where she lost to Serena Williams.


title: Simona Halep

text: In April, at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, she defeated Markéta Vondroušová and Ekaterina Alexandrova, but lost to Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals.


title: Simona Halep

text: At the Madrid Open, she beat Sara Sorribes Tormo in first round and Zheng Saisai in second round, but eventually lost to Elise Mertens in the third round. At the Italian Open, she retired during her match with Angelique Kerber after tearing a muscle in her left calf . Having not recovered from her calf injury in time, Halep withdrew from the French Open. Having still not recovered from her injury, Halep withdrew from Wimbledon, where she was the defending champion from 2019. As a result of not defending her 2019 Wimbledon points, her ranking fell to 13, dropping her out of the top 10 for the first time since January 2014 and ending a streak of 373 straight weeks in the Top 10, the 8th longest in WTA history.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep returned to play at the Canadian Open and received a bye into the second round where she was upset by Danielle Collins in three sets. Halep won her first match back since her calf injury at the 2021 Western & Southern Open against Magda Linette in the first round. However, Halep withdrew from her second-round match with an injury to her right adductor.


title: Simona Halep

text: Halep finally returned to action in a Grand Slam event as she defeated Camila Giorgi in straight sets in the first round of the US Open. She then defeated Kristína Kučová and Elena Rybakina in the next two rounds to reach the round of 16 for the fourth time in her career. However, she failed to reach the quarterfinals of the US Open after a straight-set defeat by Elina Svitolina.


title: Simona Halep

text: She finished the 2021 season at No. 20; previously she had finished each year starting with 2014 in the top 5. 2021 was her first season since 2012 where Halep did not win a WTA singles title.