Love and betrayal are the key themes of the comic satire Sense and Sensibility, a much loved, and much filmed evocation of romantic anxiety. Mrs Dashwood and her daughters live on the edge of poverty, desperate to marry well, for love at best, for sustenance at least, balancing the need for common sense against the desires and pressures of frantic emotion. Marianne falls for the wreckless Willoughby, Elinor falls in love with the shy Edward, but after the death of Mr Dashwood the family's fate seems cast from their control. In the end Colonel Brandon successfully courts Marianne, and Edward meekly asks for the hand of Elinor, heralding the happy-ever-after for both couples.
