In 1800s England, a well meaning but selfish young woman meddles in the love lives of her friends.
Chuck says:
These days, seeing a film such as Autumn de Wilde’s “Emma” is like finding water in the desert. Smart, pointed and timely, this latest version of Jane Austen’s novel is a sharply executed production that has a lighter tone than previous versions (Amy Heckerling’s “Clueless” excepted) but maintains the story’s sharp-edged approach regarding social hypocrisy, class division and just plain meddling. It also happens to be gorgeous; de Wilde and her cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt capture the pristine English manors, their well-trimmed lawns and the picturesque village it borders in such a way that it feels as though the viewer has gotten lost in a coffee table book devoted to early 18th century England.
For those who skipped Austen’s book on their high school recommended reading list, the title character is one Emma Woodhouse (Anya Taylor-Joy), a rather bored, upper class young woman whose mother died some year earlier. Living with and doting over her constantly fretting father (Bill Nighy), she’s the personification of the idle rich and is desperately in need of something to do. She thinks she’s found her calling as a matchmaker; after seeing her former governess Miss Taylor (Gemma Whalon), marry Mr. Weston (Rupert Graves) after having introduced them to each other, what else is she to think?
Emma starts to exercise her wiles on her friend Harriet Smith (Mia Goth) and the local vicar Mr. Elton (Josh O’Connor), thinking they would be the perfect couple. She puts her plan in action by convincing her friend to spurn the advances of Robert Martin (Connor Swindells), a gentleman farmer who sincerely loves her. Meanwhile, Weston’s son Frank (Callum Turner) shows up for an unexpected visit as does the withdrawn Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson) who has come to stay with her aunt. Emma sees these people as nothing more than mere pieces to move about on her playing board of romantic entanglements, which her long-time neighbor George Knightley (Johnny Flynn) looks upon with disdain.
Austin wrote that her intent in writing “Emma” was to create “a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” De Wilde and Taylor-Joy emphasize this early on, giving us a young woman who isn’t necessarily mean but callous towards others and ignorant of the harm her machinations cause. The actress shows us a gleam in her eye as Emma witnesses not simply how her pawns unwittingly do her bidding but also revels in all the trouble she causes. Credit Taylor-Joy for walking a very fine line here as her Emma still has a degree of charm that makes her appealing and renders her ultimate reckoning all the more moving.
The supporting cast is uniformly fine, as Nighy steals every scene he’s in as the most overprotective of overprotective fathers (watch him go into a tizzy at the mention of a snowstorm), Flynn displays both strength as well as sensitivity to create a character Emma could plausibly fall for, and Miranda Hart is the equally irritating and aggrieved Miss Bates, who never thought of a phrase she wouldn’t utter without a thought.
The complications that arise due to Emma’s meddling make for some of the film’s richest comedy as well as its most cringe-worthy moments, exposing the characters at their most vulnerable. Beneath all their finery, there’s a commonality to Austen’s characters and that is that so many of them are fearful of being lonely. Emma isn’t mean-spirited, she’s simply, as Heckerling pointed out, clueless and while she may think she’s helping others avoid a solitary existence, she’s combating her own loneliness, filling the hours with her schemes and plans. That she finds love herself is ironic and maybe undeserved. Still, she’s young and learns the error of her ways so spinsterhood would perhaps be too harsh a fate.
4 Stars
