Rated: PG
Directed by: Autumn de Wilde
Written by: Eleanor Catton
Based on the Book Written by: Jane Austen
Produced by: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czemin
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Bill Nighy, Mia Goth, Miranda Hart, Josh O’Connor, Callum Turner, Rupert Graves, Gemma Whelan, Amber Anderson, Tanya Reynolds, Connor Swindells.
Love knows best.
Or, Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy) knows best.
Living in Highbury Park with her widowed father, Mr. Woodhouse (Bill Nighy), Emma spends her days indulged as she plots to match and make those around her, careful never to fall in unnecessary matrimony herself.
That’s what she tells herself and others, including the insufferable and righteous Mr. Knightly (Johnny Flynn), the brother to her new brother-in-law. Mr. Knightly’s always on hand to point out her vanity.
Yes, Emma tells herself she doesn’t want marriage as she uses her influence to partner her new project and friend, Miss Harriet Smith (Mia Goth) with someone she thinks Harriet’s equal, the local vicar Mr. Elton (Josh O’Connor) (and not the besotted farmer Robert Martin (Connor Swindells), whom Harriet really cares for).
But underneath a cool demeanour Emma can’t stop the flutter of her heart when she hears of the return of the very handsome, Frank Churchill (Callum Turner).
Can you sense the period drama?
Based on the novel penned by Jane Austen (published in late December 1815), there’s plenty of lace and bonnets and piano forte playing and performance.
I admit, I could not have been in less of a mood to watch pomp and ceremony.
But despite my sigh of boredom at the beginning of the film, I found there was a sweetness and intrigue that I was slowly drawn into, helped along with the dry wit of Bill Nighy as Emma’s cantankerous but really warm-hearted father who considers a day at a wedding a truly awful day.
He’s always searching for that cold draft determined to flow through the house from some crack or cranny.
It’s really the comedy that saves this film, subtle, shown in a glance, a tsk, or a flummoxed, energetic jump from stair to floor.
So yes, sweet and funny with, Anya Taylor-Joy well-cast as the handsome, clever and rich Emma.
But this is a long movie (117 minutes), dragging with a yawn and watch-check in the first half hour, and then again when approaching the two-hour mark.
You’ve got to be in the mood for the period romance that is Emma – hence the release in time for a tolerable viewing on Valentine’s Day.