Mark Reviews Movies: EMMA.

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 27, 2020

Jane Austen begins her 1815 novel Emma describing her young protagonist as "handsome, clever, and rich." That's how director Autumn de Wilde and screenwriter Eleanor Catton's new adaptation, entitled Emma. (with the full-stop punctuation, because the story, just as Emma Woodhouse's understanding of the world and everyone in it, begins and ends with the character), begins, too. The quoted passage ends with the observation that Emma "had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." When you live under the belief that you are the center of the world, of course, there is only one thing that can cause distress or vexation.

This new film gets that about Emma, and so, too, does Anya Taylor-Joy, who plays the eponymous character with such a strident belief in herself, her talents, her importance, her cunning, and her charms that we also start to believe them. The story begins with Emma celebrating the upcoming nuptials of her governess to a well-to-do widower. She is of the sincere belief that she made this match possible. Whether or not that is true is irrelevant. In her mind, Emma is a born matchmaker, and so, with a firm knowledge that she herself will never marry, she decides to try her matchmaking skills again.

This is simple stuff, but Austen's work didn't become popular in her time and endure for more than 200 years after her death because it was simple. Her writing was of its age in terms of story, but the characters—so rich in detail and thought—and the comprehension of social mores and expectations—the better to mock them—are the elements that keep her works alive in schools, on stage, and within the frames of screens both big and small.

De Wilde and Catton's adaptation is simple, in that it tells Austen's story—with its assorted romantic misunderstandings—in a straightforward manner, as Emma gradually learns that her friends, their lives, and their romantic desires are not merely playthings in the sandbox of her world. She even learns a thing or two about love herself.

The important part of the success of this adaptation is that doesn't feel stifled by the setting or the language. One can often get the sense from such period pieces that the filmmakers and the cast have feelings of due but misguided reverence for the material. Shot compositions can look stagey, because the text—the story and the dialogue—cannot be overshadowed. Performances might seem more concerned with dialects or correctly saying the lines, instead of finding the meaning and, especially in the case of Austen, the underlying humor of the dialogue.

There are no such problems here. De Wilde doesn't overshadow the text with stylistic flourishes or distractingly dynamic camerawork, but there are clear—and even some bold—design choices on display, particularly in the costuming and sets (Everyone's class and the distinctions within them are apparent, and pastels punctuate Emma's socioeconomic sphere). De Wilde doesn't just present us with long or medium shots of the characters to show off the sets and costumes, either. Close-ups matter here, especially whenever Emma is up to her scheming, indulging in her sense of entitlement, and coming to a vessel-popping realization that she might be truly in love.

The characters are given lovingly quirky definition, too. Take Harriet Smith (Mia Goth), the poor girl of unknown parentage who becomes Emma's new friend/plaything, and how playfully naïve she is in almost every fiber of her being. She initially wants to marry a local farmer, but Emma knows better. She plans to set up Harriet with Mr. Elton (Josh O'Connor), the local vicar, who here has a bit of a temper to go along with his foolishness.

Also of importance is George Knightley (Johnny Flynn), Emma's longtime friend, as well as the only person who seems willing and capable of criticizing her—although she has a way to twist his words to never actually be wrong. Bill Nighy plays Emma's father, who always feels a draft (The put-upon servants, who are always just a beat too late to tend to the whims of their employer, are an especially amusing touch) and is inconsolable with the mere thought of losing another daughter to marriage.

He already had one daughter, named Isabella (Chloe Pirrie), marry. Her visit home, turned chaotic when her newborn emits some gas, gives us the constantly miserable visage of her husband (played by a ruthlessly deadpan Oliver Chris), who concedes to follow his wife, "as death follows life," out of the room.

The vital point, perhaps, is that filmmakers have made a comedy first, filled with sturdily eccentric performances and a dedication to ensuring that the humor of Austen's language is communicated above all else. The rest of the production—the sets and costumes and camerawork—are important, of course, but only because they're in service of the comedy, the characters, and the performances.

That brings us again to Taylor-Joy, who creates a fully formed—and sometimes intentionally off-putting—character in Emma, instead of merely coasting on charm. Her Emma is vain and spoiled—sure of herself because this insulated world has never taught her otherwise. She gets a few, hard lessons in humility when Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson), her lesser only in the class-focused eyes of society, arrives.

While Emma's mind is—theoretically, at least—in the right place with her matchmaking ambitions, the story of is mostly about her heart—being capable of seeing a person's feelings as more than just game—catching up to those goals. Taylor-Joy, the heart of Emma., portrays that transformation with as much care as the film gives to the material.

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