At the beginning of this year, many may have pondered why another movie version of Little Women was needed. Greta Gerwig’s sumptuous and splendid production vindicated itself at the box office and took home an Oscar.
Now audiences may be pondering do we really need another film version of EMMA, Jane Austen’s novel of a meddling manipulator.
After seeing Autumn de Wilde’s adaptation, the short answer is yes.
With a screenplay by Man Booker ward winning novelist, Eleanor Catton, Autumn brings a spring to the familiar fable of faux pas and societal fiasco.
Both writer and director have built on the inherent comedy in the passive-aggressive behavior that the pressures of politeness can create.
For those non Austenites, EMMA concerns the well meaning but misplaced misadventures of Emma Woodhouse, a spoilt twenty one year old brat doted on by her valetudinarian dad.
Under the misapprehension that she has successfully matchmade the matrimony of her governess and a wealthy neighbour widower, Emma sets her sights on young Harriet Smith, a woman described as having “uncertain parentage” whom Emma charitably decides to take under her wing with an eye toward helping her gain significant social advantage, through marrying well, naturally.
Unfailingly polite and kind yet desperately naïve, Harriet is dazzled by the beguiling young woman and is thrilled that Emma has taken such a personal interest in her fortunes.
Trouble is, Emma is a bit of a bully, an emir of the emotional terrain of others. All are subject to her Emma-rate, a caustic caliphate that dictates the fates of those in her orbit.
In one painful moment, Emma’s self-centredness boils over, leading her to make a shocking and brutal social faux pas—insulting Miss Bates to such a degree that it borders on scandal.
Her actions incur the wrath of Knightley, the Darceyesque suitor, who is furious that Emma would behave so poorly. Chastened, Emma finally acknowledges that his opinion of her matters more than she had realised.
Anya Taylor-Joy stars as Emma, staunchly confident and precocious martinet who believes that her contemporaries are pliable marionettes under her puppet mastery. Johnny Flynn smoulders as the flinty bad boy elite, Knightley, Bill Nighy is perfect as the paternal mentor, the hypochondriac father, diligent to draft and alert to affliction, while Miranda Hart effortlessly steals the show in the role of Miss Bates.
Production designer, Kave Quinn, weaves her superlative magic and costume designer, Alexandra Byrne, Academy Award winning costumer for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, dresses this production handsomely.
Isobel Waller-Bridge’s score is intrusive and exaggerated, a deliberate choice apparently, a sort of hey listen to me Regency Rag that proves disruptive, a score to haunt the memory for all the wrong reasons. Ironically, the last big screen version of Emma won the Academy Award for Best Score, composed by Rachel Portman.
Sumptuously shot by cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt , EMMA is a first class costume comedy, a spirited satire that aspires to the perfection of Jane Austen’s prose architecture in pictorial depiction.
