EMMA.
Directed by: Autumn de Wilde
Written by: Eleanor Catton - Based on the novel by Jane Austen
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Mia Goth, Bill Nighy, Miranda Hart, Josh O'Connor, Callum Turner, Amber Anderson, Tanya Reynolds, Rupert Graves, Gemma Whelan, Connor Swindells, Myra McFadyen
Comedy/Drama - 125 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 27 Feb 2020
Written by: Eleanor Catton - Based on the novel by Jane Austen
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Mia Goth, Bill Nighy, Miranda Hart, Josh O'Connor, Callum Turner, Amber Anderson, Tanya Reynolds, Rupert Graves, Gemma Whelan, Connor Swindells, Myra McFadyen
Comedy/Drama - 125 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 27 Feb 2020
During China’s Cultural Revolution in the late ‘60s, the communist authorities banned Jane Austen novels. They labelled her a “British bourgeois imperialist” author. Perhaps they were thinking about one of Austen’s most famous characters, Emma Woodhouse. Woodhouse is the epitome of class warfare and rigid social stratification. It seems borderline nonsensical a character such as her maintains legions of devoted fans today – for here is a woman who believes a person’s physical, emotional, and moral worth is based on their bank account. Is Emma given a pass because Austen sugarcoats her attitude with wry comedy? She may be the original Mean Girl; the ur-Regina George, queen bee of The Plastics. She even enlists her own hand-picked sycophant in the much-maligned Harriet Smith. Yet, listening to the approving murmurs of the ladies in attendance at the screening, Emma can do no wrong.
Director Autumn de Wilde offers a fresh eye on the familiar material. This may help paper over the inevitable generational split in the audience – those who remember Gwyenth Paltrow as Emma in 1996 and those youngsters who think this high-born snob is a rip-off of Alicia Silverstone’s Cher in Clueless. De Wilde is a professional photographer and cut her teeth in the music video world turning songs into visuals for Beck, Rilo Kiley, and The Raconteurs. There are moments in the film when the camera pauses long enough for a moment to seem like a still picture. One moment in particular has Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy, Split) glare directly into the lens as if she is about to lash out and attack it. Her face screams, “Come at me!” The stare was probably in response to being called to the carpet again by her close friend and Jiminy Cricket conscience, George Knightley (Johnny Flynn, Clouds of Sils Maria).
Director Autumn de Wilde offers a fresh eye on the familiar material. This may help paper over the inevitable generational split in the audience – those who remember Gwyenth Paltrow as Emma in 1996 and those youngsters who think this high-born snob is a rip-off of Alicia Silverstone’s Cher in Clueless. De Wilde is a professional photographer and cut her teeth in the music video world turning songs into visuals for Beck, Rilo Kiley, and The Raconteurs. There are moments in the film when the camera pauses long enough for a moment to seem like a still picture. One moment in particular has Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy, Split) glare directly into the lens as if she is about to lash out and attack it. Her face screams, “Come at me!” The stare was probably in response to being called to the carpet again by her close friend and Jiminy Cricket conscience, George Knightley (Johnny Flynn, Clouds of Sils Maria).
Knightley is the only being allowed to pierce Emma’s façade with the truth. His social status rivals hers, but he would not dare classify himself as a social influencer, a role Emma considers her raison d’être. Knightley knows there are as many good people at the bottom as there are wicked ones at the top. The tenant farmers and poor widows must be protected, but Knightley is no saint. There is a fixed fiduciary fulcrum at which open mockery and satirical jabs are not only permitted, but offered with gusto. Emma will not even speak to entire social strata. Money proclaims good manners, character, and breeding. If you knew Emma in real life, she either wouldn’t talk to you or she would come off too off-putting to bear.
Emma’s strongest personality trait is unearned self-confidence. She believes herself to be a clairvoyant match maker and apparently the only mechanism in determining a pair is her reckoning of gentility. However, de Wilde avoids much of the snark and underhandedness which should spiral from these actions with a playful atmosphere. The majority of the characters are idiosyncratic goofballs. Emma’s father (Bill Nighy, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) fights against drafts in the house as if they were invading Gauls. Emma’s sister has yet to latch on to the peculiarities of raising young children as one must summon the doctor every time the baby disrupts the parlor setting with an over-enthusiastic odor. Even Emma is not above a sneaky move when no one is looking as she hitches up her finery to warm the royal buns by the fire.
De Wilde employs Wes Anderson as an influence breaking up stuffy British village life with the diligent marching of Mrs. Godard’s parlor girls. All dressed as little French Matildas, they resemble awkward goslings attempting to keep pace with Mother Goose. Harriet Smith (Mia Goth, A Cure for Wellness) is a recent parlor girl arrived with a blank slate for a background. Her father may either be the Kind of England or the King’s Royal chamber pot washer. Emma, forlorn after marrying off her former Governess to a local landowner, wastes no time determining Harriet is well-bred and must therefore refuse the good man she loves to torture her soul pursuing men of means. Written through a slightly tinted lens, Jane Austen could have had Emma perform these same actions and come off as one of literature’s most callous villains.
No matter when the present day is, we tend to glamorize the past. I have no doubt my mother would exchange the early 2000s for the early 1800s in a second…but only if she could critique society at Emma’s side. However, what man would go back? Look at those ridiculous high collars scratching the mandatory sideburns – ouch. Lovers of a piece of art, especially this reviewer, usually shudder at remakes. The idea of wasting effort and elbow grease to create something already created frustrates us. De Wilde keeps the story and even the whimsical tone of Emma’s romantic chicanery, but the result looks different. The color palette is darker, the bold costumes pop against the shaded backgrounds, and her method envelops the audience. Even the men audibly gasped at Emma’s verbal faux pas against poor Miss Bates. The communists came around in the late ‘70s unbanning Ms. Austen’s works. Yet, they remained confounded as to why people sometimes want to read books for enjoyment instead of for dialectical purposes. No political dogma has yet to successfully comprehend what it is about that Emma Woodhouse.
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