emma movie review

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

This originally ran on February 21, and we are re-running because of its early VOD drop.

There was a two-year period in the mid-1990s when Emma Woodhouse was everywhere. First came Amy Heckerling ’s “ Clueless ," a modern-day classic with the action of Jane Austen ’s 1815 novel transported to 1990s-era Beverly Hills. The following year came two versions, one on film, starring Gwyneth Paltrow , and the other on television, starring Kate Beckinsale (a perfect actress for this type of material; see Whit Stillman ’s “ Love & Friendship ,” based on a story Austen wrote at 14). About 10 years ago, there was a BBC mini-series adaptation. You’d think we would be Emma-ed out by now. Not so. The new adaptation, starring Anya Taylor-Joy , and directed by Autumn de Wilde , is here, and it’s wonderful!

Emma may live alone on a giant estate with her father ( Bill Nighy ), but her world is very crowded. She has “taken on” Harriet ( Mia Goth ), an orphaned girl of unknown parentage, boarding at a local girls’ school. Harriet has a crush on Mr. Martin, a humble widowed farmer ( Connor Swindells ), and based on Harriet and Mr. Martin’s interactions, her feelings for him are reciprocated. Emma can’t bear this (a farmer? To quote Cher in “Clueless": “As if !”), and basically throws Harriet at the vicar, a smarmy Mr. Elton (Josh O’Connor). This fails spectacularly, since Mr. Elton falls for Emma instead of Harriet. There’s more. (There always is in Austen.) Emma floats above attachments, and yet she is drawn to a man who isn’t even on the scene for half the movie, a Frank Churchill ( Callum Turner ), who is wealthy and about to be wealthier. A wrench in Emma’s plans arrives in the form of Jane Fairfax ( Amber Anderson ), the niece of a local woman ( Miranda Hart ), who floats into town, soaking up all the male admiration, irritating Emma. Emma is a glorious brat. Meanwhile, Mr. Knightley ( Johnny Flynn ) sees through Emma. The two have known one another since childhood, and she can’t “put on airs” with him. He won’t allow it. He sees what she’s doing, and he doesn’t like it. He calls her on it.

Match-making is tricky. It requires subtlety and finesse. It probably, also, requires a professional. Left in the hands of enthusiastic amateurs, match-making often leads to heartbreak. Jane Austen understood this dynamic all too well, and in Emma— the last novel to be published during her lifetime—she brings us an irrepressible and confident match-maker, albeit a totally incompetent one. Emma thinks she knows best, when in reality she wreaks havoc. Unlike the majority of Austen’s heroines, Emma has her own fortune, and therefore feels no pressing need to marry. She’s seemingly totally un-interested in the subject for herself.

Autumn de Wilde’s approach to this tale of frenzied and complicated social activity is both elegant and comedic. Charm is one of the hardest qualities to capture (or even explain), and there is genuine charm here. The performances are uniformly excellent, each actor bringing depth and shading to their characters (even the hovering footmen, who never say a word, clearly have opinions about the people they serve. Watch the behavior in the background of scenes!) Jokes set up in the beginning of the film (like the schtick with the fire screen, for example) pay off big in the final scene. This kind of thing takes real care, a sensitive and pointed accumulation of details which add up to the unmistakable sensation that those palatial estates are inhabited by living breathing eccentric people.

Taylor-Joy, one of the best new actresses today, does not try to make us like Emma, and does not attempt to soft-pedal Emma’s selfishness. She does not try to be adorable. Austen herself knew that nobody (save her) would probably “like” Emma. Instead, we see a woman who rushes headlong into chaos, for her own reasons, some of which she isn’t even aware of herself. Johnny Flynn, a singer-songwriter-actor (who plays David Bowie in the upcoming “Stardust"), is just superb here, a perfect Austen romantic lead. Knightley is independent, a little bit lazy, and also vaguely cranky. He, like Emma, lacks self-awareness. When he takes Emma down a peg (as he does, over and over again), there’s such a sense of conviction in him that the movie holds its breath, especially since it’s overwhelmingly obvious that these two prickly people should get it over with and start kissing one another as soon as possible.

Autumn de Wilde has a busy career as a photographer and director of music videos and video shorts. This is her first feature, and she comes to it with panache, confidence, and a welcome sense of bravado. “ Emma .” has a bold vision and style, with cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt , costume designer Alexandra Byrne , and production designer Kave Quinn , working in sync. The needle drops—of traditional English songs thrumming over the green landscape—are perfectly placed, and all of it pours into the thematic and textual concerns of the film, highlighting not only the artificiality of Regency society (its pretensions, colors and textures) but the swirling undercurrents of human feeling, which the surfaces desperately try to hide and/or suppress. The hats perched on women’s heads look like giant predatory birds. Schoolgirls wear red hooded cloaks, and march in unison through town like a bunch of Little Red Riding Hoods (or Margaret Atwood ’s Handmaids).

The actual title of the film is “Emma.” Period included. This is very intriguing. What does “The End” even mean to Jane Austen? Happily ever after? Not so fast. The portraits of married life Austen provides are not encouraging. There’s the married couple in Sense and Sensibility , complete with squalling baby, echoed in Emma by two other young married couples, neither of which suggest “domestic bliss.” I always think of the final sentence of Sense and Sensibility , which—on the surface—suggests a happy ending, but just count all of the negative words!

Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communication which strong family affection would naturally dictate, and among the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.

Ambivalence, thy name is Austen. De Wilde understands this intimately. Her cast understands this. Emma’s ambivalence towards marriage goes mostly unremarked-upon, although it is the proverbial elephant in the room. The sexual heat and romantic chemistry generated between Emma and Mr. Knightley (and Taylor-Joy and Flynn) could light up those gloomy estates single-handedly. Maybe such heat is worth holding out for.

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Now playing

The Fall Guy

Brian tallerico.

The Idea of You

The Roundup: Punishment

Simon abrams.

Sweet Dreams

Matt zoller seitz.

Challengers

We Grown Now

Peyton robinson, film credits.

Emma. (2020)

Rated PG for brief partial nudity.

124 minutes

Anya Taylor-Joy as Emma Woodhouse

Johnny Flynn as George Knightley

Bill Nighy as Mr. Woodhouse

Mia Goth as Harriet Smith

Josh O'Connor as Mr. Elton

Callum Turner as Frank Churchill

Rupert Graves as Mr. Weston

Miranda Hart as Miss Bates

Autumn de Wilde

Writer (based on the novel by)

Jane Austen
Eleanor Catton

Cinematographer

Christopher Blauvelt
Nick Emerson
David Schweitzer
Isobel Waller-Bridge

Latest blog posts

A Preview of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival

Driven By Love and Necessity: An Interview With Lily Gladstone

I’ve Never Seen Anything Like It Before: Roger Corman (1926-2024)

RogerEbert.com Announces Assistant Editor, Weekly Critic, and Social Media Manager

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Link to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
The Fall Guy Link to The Fall Guy
The Last Stop in Yuma County Link to The Last Stop in Yuma County

New TV Tonight

Interview With the Vampire: Season 2
After the Flood: Season 1
Bridgerton: Season 3
Outer Range: Season 2
The Big Cigar: Season 1
Harry Wild: Season 3
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Season 11.1
RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars: Season 9
Spacey Unmasked: Season 1
The Killing Kind: Season 1

Where to Watch

Rent EMMA. on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

Other adaptations may do a better job of consistently capturing the spirit of the classic source material, but Jane Austen fans should still find a solid match in this Emma.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Autumn de Wilde

Anya Taylor-Joy

Emma Woodhouse

Johnny Flynn

George Knightley

Mr. Woodhouse

Harriet Smith

Miranda Hart

Movie Clips

More like this, movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles..

Entertainment
A Gorgeous New Emma Adaptation Strikes Just the Right Balance of Modern and Authentic

A Gorgeous New Emma Adaptation Strikes Just the Right Balance of Modern and Authentic

I n the days before her novels were adapted into swoony TV miniseries, reimagined as zombie-themed novelties and spun off into little gifty-type advice books, Jane Austen felt like a well-kept secret. Before Austenmania took hold, scholars studied her and avid readers adored her—she was hardly obscure. But suddenly, people in book clubs everywhere were reading, and adoring, her. Longtime Austen lovers, even if they rejoiced in her posthumous superstardom, couldn’t help feeling a little miffed. After all, they knew her way back when, long before Colin Firth, in the much-loved 1995 TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy’ed just about everyone off their feet.

But there’s no reason to be snobbishly proprietary of Austen. Like a great pop song that can survive being used in a car commercial, she is, and always will be, for everyone to enjoy—and most important, there are always younger audiences waiting to discover her. Autumn de Wilde’s bright and lively adaptation of Austen’s 1815 novel Emma —its title is Emma. , with a definitive period—feels both modern and authentic in the best way, inviting everyone, diehard Austenites and newbies alike, into its embrace.

Anya Taylor-Joy plays 20-year-old Emma Woodhouse, a woman of leisure who’s mildly bored but usually kind. She lives in the comfortably appointed house where she grew up, with her father, Mr. Woodhouse, who does not suffer fools. (Bill Nighy plays him, in a performance that’s one long, delectable sigh of exasperation). Emma’s older sister has married and left home; Mr. Woodhouse nurses a comic grudge for this transgression, and Emma sees no reason to marry and leave home herself. She’s content, instead, to spend her days making matches for her friends.

Her latest victim is Harriet, a guileless naïf whose family origins are uncertain. (She’s played by Mia Goth, who has some of the dewy winsomeness of Shelley Duvall.) Emma knows Harriet needs to make a good marriage to survive, and pushes to fix her up with the snobby local vicar, Mr. Elton (Josh O’Connor), even though Harriet really loves a successful local farmer, Mr. Martin (Connor Swindells). Emma has had success in making matches before, and she believes her methods are foolproof—that certainty is the surest recipe for disaster when it comes to affairs of the heart. Meanwhile, a longtime family friend, the brother of Emma’s sister’s husband, observes Emma’s meddling with amusement and sometimes with alarm: George Knightley (Johnny Flynn, the right mix of raffish and gentlemanly) tries to advise Emma when he sees her on the wrong track. Because she’s too stubborn and willful to accept advice—especially from someone who irks her, as Knightley does, for reasons that are obvious to the audience but not to this perfectly matched pair—she digs the heels of her dainty Georgian slippers in harder, only to make a bigger mess.

Emma means well, and she’s charming and witty and well-liked by almost everyone. But she also hasn’t lived— her folly lies in thinking that arranging the affairs of others is the same as experiencing life for herself. And she is, as we see, capable of tremendous, snobbish cruelty: At one point she unleashes a careless insult on a kind friend (Miranda Hart, in a sweetly dithery performance), which almost turns Knightley against her for good.

Knightley and Emma are creatures of their society, bound by its rules and its decorousness. But de Wilde makes it clear that they can’t be fully tamed. Tenderness is an impulse that springs from the heart; Emma and Knightley just need to learn how to set it free. Watching them grow into that realization is one of the great pleasures of a movie that’s full of them. When Emma and Knightley attend a dance, the precision of the steps—and all the rules of where the arms and hands should go, and where the eyes should be focused—appear limiting. But de Wilde shows that this ritual is a place where freedom and wonder can blossom within the safety of structure. It’s here that we see hard proof of what we’ve intuited all along: that Emma and Knightley are made for each other.

The actors who play them are wonderful, together and separately. Taylor-Joy, whose searching, wide-set eyes give her the mysterious beauty of an elegant reptile, makes a crackling transition from Emma’s too-cool-for-school ennui to a state of being where the very air around her feels electrified with uncertainty. And Flynn’s Knightley, who looks a bit scrappy and rough even in his evening clothes, meets her with perfect ease under that supercharged bower of romance. (Flynn is also a musician, and you’ll want to stay through the credits to hear him sing “Queen Bee,” a folk ballad he wrote that’s worthy of Fairport Convention.) Knightley woos Emma, at first unwittingly, by making her feel uncomfortable, but she needs that challenge to lift her out of a rut that threatens to swallow her. And Emma has the lightness Knightley needs: His features look softer, younger, when she’s by his side. At her best, she’s a reflector and magnifier of joy.

De Wilde is an experienced photographer, focusing largely on musicians, and she’s directed music videos for Beck, Rilo Kiley and the Raconteurs. Emma. has no first-feature shakiness. Rendered in sugar-almond tones of blush pink, daffodil yellow and ice blue by cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt, production designer Kave Quinn and costume designer Alexandra Byrne, Emma. is as confident and gorgeous to look at as a tower of exquisitely rendered petits fours. We’ve seen quite a few versions of Emma in the past quarter-century: A 2009 BBC series starring Romola Garai, a 1996 film featuring a pre-jade egg Gwyneth Paltrow . (As, hopefully, we stride into a new era of nontraditional casting, you could argue that an Emma adaptation, or any Austen interpretation, doesn’t need to have an all-white cast—a thought for filmmakers of the future.) Amy Heckerling’s glorious 1995 Clueless , featuring Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd as modern-day Emma-and-Knightley stand-ins, may be the most well-loved reading. This Emma— or Emma. —stands proud next to that one; it’s a breezy modern classic. Austen, always respected by lovers of literature, is now also a certified rock star. But if de Wilde is fully in tune with that timeless pop sensibility, she allows Austen her dignity too. Austen couldn’t have imagined a future of Regency cosplay and Pride and Prejudice coffee mugs, and she couldn’t have conceived of movies, period. But her books, works of spirit and intelligence with great bones, are like songs that people can’t resist covering. Consider Emma. the work of a great tribute band.

More Must-Reads From TIME

What Student Photojournalists Saw at the Campus Protests
Women Say They Were Pressured Into Long-Term Birth Control
How Far Trump Would Go
Scientists Are Finding Out Just How Toxic Your Stuff Is
Boredom Makes Us Human
John Mulaney Has What Late Night Needs
The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Supported by

‘Emma’ Review: Back on the Manor, but Still Clueless

Anya Taylor-Joy stars in the latest movie adaptation of the Jane Austen novel about a young woman’s romantic meddling.

Share full article

By Manohla Dargis

Your first instinct while watching “Emma” may be to lick the screen (or perhaps blanch). This latest adaptation of Jane Austen has been candied up with the sort of palette you see in certain old-fashioned confectionaries and in fussy Georgian-era restorations. With a rosy blush in her cheeks, her satiny ribbons and bows, Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy) herself looks as lovingly adorned and tempting as a Christmas delectable , though whether she bears any relation to Austen’s Emma is another matter.

Each generation gets the “Emma” it presumably wants or deserves. In the mid-1990s, there were several, most notably “Clueless,” Amy Heckerling’s 1995 contemporary take with a, like, totally cute miniskirted Alicia Silverstone, and Douglas McGrath’s squarer, rather more well-behaved “Emma” starring Gwyneth Paltrow. A half-dozen or so Austen adaptations, both for film and for television, were released in the mid-1990s, causing McGrath to note that “first there is no Jane Austen and then it’s raining Jane Austen.” The downpour has continued since, though sometimes eased into a drizzle.

The new “Emma,” directed by Autumn de Wilde, making a confident feature debut, is set in an early 19th century that has been shrewdly retrofitted for modern-age sensibilities. (The novel was published in 1815.) All the familiar elements are here: the rolling hills and empire waistlines, the elegant manors and manners, the silent and attentive servants. Yet everything — the pea greens and dusky pinks, the comic looks and misunderstandings — has been emphatically embellished, so much so that it initially seems that de Wilde has adapted the material using Wes Anderson software.

This approach takes getting used to and your mileage may vary; much depends on your tolerance for archness, twee and lightly deployed Anderson-ish tics. Certainly the opening scenes are less than promising, what with their fussy symmetry, popping colors and absence of shadows as well as flashes of unappealing, poorly processed visuals. Yet when Emma begins swanning around some blooms while imperiously instructing a maid about which flower to cut, the scene economically summons up a world and an attitude of careless, unconscious privilege. Taylor-Joy affects an appropriate hauteur, though one that, alas, too often solidifies into masklike blankness.

This is a somewhat harsh, unappealing introduction to the character, whom Austen describes as “handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition.” At 21, Emma lives with her father (Bill Nighy, reliably amusing) in a large country estate 16 miles from London. As in the novel, the movie opens just as her longtime companion, Miss Taylor (the invaluable Gemma Whelan), marries, leaving Emma alone and prey to her worst, most meddlesome habits, particularly when it comes to other people. She’s blissfully unaware of her failings, accustomed to having her way with, Austen writes, “a disposition to think a little too well of herself.”

Written by the novelist Eleanor Catton (“The Luminaries”), this “Emma” follows Austen’s story in its sweep and to that end involves its heroine’s dogged, often humorously ill-conceived efforts to make a match for her poor friend, Harriet (the affecting Mia Goth). Harriet lives in a school whose red-coated denizens can be seen trudging around as meticulously arranged as the girls in the children’s book “Madeline” (or the titular servants in “The Handmaid’s Tale”). In Harriet, Emma sees a self-flattering project, someone whose life she can improve with better society and the right suitor. In this material, de Wilde clearly sees an opportunity for heightened expressionism.

The story’s comedy — and its narrative boldness — comes from the often absurd, yawning chasm between what Emma thinks she knows (and she believes she knows all) and what she so profoundly doesn’t understand, including the hearts of the people in her orbit. These include a dull clergyman (Josh O’Connor) and an enigmatic interloper (Callum Turner), both of whom Emma tries to steer toward Harriet. And then there’s the dashing heartthrob, Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn, very good), a wealthy friend of the family who, soon after galloping into the story, has stripped down naked in his bedroom, an entrance that immediately tips the role he plays in this game.

As Emma’s plans stutter forward and amusingly slip off course, the filmmakers’ mild interventions feel less forced, more organic; even a seductive dance and an importunate nosebleed end up working nicely. Austen’s story and words, it turns out, prove unsurprisingly durable and impervious to decorative tweaking. And so, after a while, the Anderson-ish tics become less noticeable, and both the emotions and overall movie more persuasive. Much of this has to do with the pleasure of watching people fall on their faces — and in love — and with the suppleness of the largely note-perfect cast. Together, they deepen the feelings that swirl around a woman who with a sharp tongue and a vast imagination invents her world amusingly, foolishly, enduringly.

Emma Rated PG for discreet nudity. Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes.

Manohla Dargis has been the co-chief film critic since 2004. She started writing about movies professionally in 1987 while earning her M.A. in cinema studies at New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Andy Serkis, the star of the earlier “Planet of the Apes” movies, and Owen Teague, the new lead, discuss the latest film in the franchise , “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.”

The HBO series “The Sympathizer” is not just a good story, it’s a sharp piece of criticism on Vietnam war movies, our critic writes .

In “Dark Matter,” the new Apple TV+ techno-thriller, a portal to parallel realities allows people to visit new worlds and revisit their own past decisions .

The tennis movie “Challengers” comes to an abrupt stop midmatch, so we don’t know who won. Does that matter? Our critics have thoughts .

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime and Hulu to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

an image, when javascript is unavailable

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘emma’: film review.

Anya Taylor-Joy ('The Witch') leaves horror behind as the busybody heroine in 'Emma,' the latest adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, also starring Johnny Flynn, Bill Nighy, Josh O'Connor and Callum Turner.

By Caryn James

Caryn James

Share this article on Facebook
Share this article on Twitter
Share this article on Flipboard
Share this article on Email
Show additional share options
Share this article on Linkedin
Share this article on Pinit
Share this article on Reddit
Share this article on Tumblr
Share this article on Whatsapp
Share this article on Print
Share this article on Comment

The rom-com as we know it owes a lot to Jane Austen . Her novels give us the lovers who face obstacles of their own making, the strong-willed heroine who longs for the wrong man while the right one is at her elbow, and the comic sidekicks, all with the sumptuous trappings of grand country houses and 19th-century balls.

Emma , the story of an indulged but good-hearted young woman who relentlessly and wrongheadedly plays matchmaker, is a stalwart for the screen, from Gwyneth Paltrow on film and Kate Beckinsale on television in 1996, to a series starring Romola Garai in 2009 — and, of course, the classic contemporary spin on the character in Clueless (1995). It turns out there is room for another version, as long as you don’t expect anything radical.

Full credits

Production companies: Working Title Films, Blueprint Pictures, Perfect World Pictures Distributor: Focus Features Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Bill Nighy, Mia Goth, Miranda Hart, Josh O'Connor, Callum Turner, Rupert Graves, Amber Anderson Director: Autumn de Wilde Screenwriter: Eleanor Catton, based on the novel by Jane Austen Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin Director of photography: Christopher Blauvelt Production designer: Kave Quinn Costume designer: Alexandra Byrne Music: Isobel Waller-Bridge, David Schweitzer Editor: Nick Emerson Casting: Jessica Ronane

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Give me (demi) moore: the star is an early cannes film festival breakout with a packed schedule, cannes hidden gem: animal-human relationships are put to the test in ‘dog on trial’, mubi takes andrea arnold’s ‘bird’ for u.k. and ireland ahead of cannes premiere, august diehl, andrea riseborough to play shostakovichs in ‘the noise of time’, amc networks film boss: moviegoers need a “reeducation” to be lured back to theaters, francis ford coppola releases first teaser trailer for epic ‘megalopolis’.

‘Emma.’: Film Review

Autumn de Wilde offers a handsome, clever, faithfully unambitious take on the Jane Austen classic.

By Andrew Barker

Andrew Barker

Senior Features Writer

Sammy Hagar on Rocking with Van Halen, Building His Cabo Wabo Empire, and Why Live Music Will Be The ‘Ultimate Savior of Art’ 2 weeks ago
Shane MacGowan, the Pogues Frontman and ‘Fairytale of New York’ Singer, Dies at 65 6 months ago
‘Yellowstone,’ ‘Love and Death’ Spark ‘Game-Changing’ Film Production Spike in Texas 11 months ago

Mia Goth (left) as "Harriet Smith" and Anya Taylor-Joy (right) as "Emma Woodhouse" in director Autumn de Wilde's EMMA, a Focus Features release. Credit : Focus Features

Jane Austen has been through a lot on screen in recent years. From watching details of her own life contorted into a romantic comedy framework in “Becoming Jane,” seeing her most enduring masterpiece invaded by the undead in “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” or observing the cottage merchandising and tourism industry that has sprung up in her wake in “Austenland,” one longs to imagine the saltine-dry turn of phrase she might have used to describe the splintering and commodification of her own legacy. But barring that, there’s something quite comforting in seeing her work returned to a more natural habitat: adapted into handsome, clever, faithfully unambitious films like Autumn de Wilde’s “ Emma .”

As the film’s title card and poster tell us, the proper rendering of de Wilde’s “Emma” is not simply “Emma” but “Emma.” — period and all. It’s unclear why the filmmakers insisted on end punctuation, especially considering the extreme unlikelihood that this will be the last word on the material. The final novel Austen published before her death, “Emma” has been adapted numerous times before – perhaps most memorably when toplined by first-time leading lady Gwyneth Paltrow in 1996, and more recently by Romola Garai in the BBC’s 2009 miniseries — and this newest addition is an entirely worthy companion, though hardly a definitive take.

Strangely, considering how often filmmakers have returned to this particular well, “Emma” has always been an easy enough novel to tackle, but a more difficult beast to fully capture. It’s both one of Austen’s funniest and least eventful works, and so many of its pleasures come from the subtle tonal sleights of hand that she plays on the reader throughout. Emma Woodhouse is a snob — often comically deluded, sometimes casually cruel in spite of her good intentions — but the ostensibly objective third-person narration of the novel (arguably Austen’s most sophisticated employment of her free indirect style) stays so carefully in her corner for most of the book that the reader only recognizes the full extent of her snobbery as the character does herself. Making this work on screen is trickier than it sounds. (And frankly, of all “Emma’s” cinematic interpreters, Amy Heckerling probably found the cleverest substitute for Austen’s tone in Cher Horowitz’s ditzily self-assured narration in “Clueless.”)

Popular on Variety

For this reason, Emma herself can’t help but come across as a bit of a cipher through this film’s opening stages, played by Anya Taylor-Joy with glamorous poise and a light sheen of frost. Like the book, the film opens as our 20-year-old protagonist is preparing for the wedding of her governess, a pairing she credits to her own matchmaking skills. Content to swan through her lavish country estate while a pair of long-suffering servants attend to the ludicrous demands of her hypochondriac father (played by Bill Nighy in an uncontested layup of casting), Emma is hardly in a rush to find a match for herself, though she follows news of a particularly eligible bachelor, the ever-elusive Frank Churchill (Callum Turner), with discreet interest.

In the meantime, she’s tasked herself with mentoring dewy teenager Harriet Smith (the all-astonishment Mia Goth), a low-born student at a local boarding school whose infatuation with an honorable farmer Emma disapproves of; pursuing a simmering rivalry with accomplished orphan Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson); and maintaining a semi-flirtatious discourse with her sardonic neighbor and in-law, Mr. Knightley ( Johnny Flynn , figuratively and literally fighting with his stiff, high collar through most of his scenes).

For all her background in photography and music videos, first-time feature director de Wilde rarely goes overboard with ornamentation or style, nor does she dirty up the surroundings in the manner of Joe Wright’s “Pride and Prejudice,” which sought to remind us that Austen’s elegant country lords and ladies were all likely stepping over piles of manure and dodging flocks of farm animals as they took a turn around the grounds. Here, the drawing rooms and gardens are all dollhouse-tidy, though never unduly grand, and the occasional nods toward Wes Anderson-style preciousness in the design — the decorous title cards marking the change of seasons, the red-shawled boarding school girls traipsing through town like ducklings in single-file — are rarely overdone. (If only one could say the same for the score by Isobel Waller-Bridge and David Schweitzer, which keeps asserting itself like an overeager puppy, as though nervous about being missed amid all of the Mozart sonatas and 18th-century hymns on the soundtrack.)

Screenwriter Eleanor Catton does deft work adapting the novel, not only retaining all of the plot points that matter, but also keeping in plenty of the ones that don’t, as this is a story that should always be able to accommodate stray tangents, diversions and flashes of buttoned-down anarchy. As for the latter, several of Miss Bates’ hailstorms of non sequitur sentence fragments survive intact, delivered by Miranda Hart with just the right mixture of ridiculousness and pathos. Likewise, most of the better supporting parts are aced here — from Anderson’s dyspeptic take on Jane Fairfax to Tanya Reynolds’ thoroughly hissable Mrs. Elton. (Mr. Elton, the local vicar with ill-fated eyes for Emma, is somewhat more strangely handled — here portrayed by Josh O’Connor as a bit of a bumbling incel, when he might more accurately be thought of as a fuccboi.) But as always, an Austen adaptation lives or dies on the suitability of its central coupling, and Taylor-Joy and Flynn have decently charming chemistry together, with the former allowing her icy reserve to melt in slow stages, and the latter (who may strike some Austen formalists as an odd choice for the role) using his rougher, more modern characteristics to give Knightley’s moments of rigor — “badly done, Emma” — a bit of bite.

The question of how much to contemporize an Austen adaptation is always an open one. However many blueprints might exist, interpreting the author will likely only get tougher and tougher as the Regency culture she depicted grows smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, its customs and mores beginning to more closely resemble curious anthropological phenomena than simply hyper-formal precursors to our own. As Virginia Woolf once observed, Austen was the rare cutting satirist who, at heart, “had no wish for things to be other than they are,” and so to really appreciate an Austen story you have to be able to laugh, as she did, at the pettiness of her characters’ quarrels, the smallness of their scandals, and the needlessly roundabout curlicues of their romances while also being deeply and sincerely invested in their outcomes. But at least for now, the more you do for them, the less they do for themselves, and de Wilde is smart enough to trust her source material where it counts.

Reviewed at Rodeo Screening Room, Beverly Hills, Jan. 30, 2020. MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 129 MIN.

Production: A Focus Features presentation in association with Perfect World Pictures of a Working Title/Blueprint Pictures production. Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin. Executive producers: Amelia Granger, Ben Knight.
Crew: Director: Autumn de Wilde. Screenplay: Eleanor Catton, based on the novel by Jane Austen. Camera: Christopher Blauvelt. Editor: Nick Emerson. Music: Isobel Waller-Bridge, David Schweitzer.
With: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Mia Goth, Bill Nighy, Miranda Hart , Josh O’Connor, Amber Anderson, Callum Turner, Tanya Reynolds.

More From Our Brands

Jon stewart roasts bob menendez over ‘emotional support gold bars’, billy baldwin and chynna phillips’s california home just hit the market for $3.8 million, husch blackwell’s 2024 ncaa compliance report: college athletics in transition, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, snowpiercer season 4 release fast-tracked final episodes to hit amc this summer, verify it's you, please log in.

Emma Review: Anya Taylor-Joy Is Superb In Excellent Jane Austen Adaptation

In 1995, Amy Heckerling wrote and directed what is arguably the perfect adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma . Clueless is a modernization, set in mid-‘90s Beverly Hills, and most of the character names are changed, but it’s a wonderful translation of the source material that elegantly and hilariously showcased the timelessness of Austen’s work.

From the perspective of a millennial (of which I am), Clueless is a modern classic, both as a smart literary adaptation and as a movie that encapsulates an era of pop culture. By extension, it’s become a high bar that any other Emma adaptation works to reach, and while that makes for a challenging comparison, it’s one that Autumn de Wilde’s film walks away from positively. The new interpretation stands apart as a more directly faithful cinematic take on the Jane Austen book, complete with all period dressings, and fronted by a captivating performance by Anya Taylor-Joy , and brought to life with beautiful style, it’s a delightful, funny, and sharp take on the material.

Written by Eleanor Catton, Emma transports us back to 19th century England where we are introduced to Emma Woodhouse (Anya Taylor-Joy), a spoiled young woman who lives with her emotionally and physically fragile father ( Bill Nighy ), and while maintaining her own independence gets a special kick out of playing matchmaker. Unfortunately, it’s a habit that results in some dire consequences when she tries to meddle in the love life of her new friend, Harriet ( Mia Goth ).

When Emma learns that Harriet is romantically linked with a young farmer named Robert Martin (Connor Swindells), and that a proposal is imminent, she does what she can to disrupt the relationship so that she can try and “help” her friend finder a husband of a higher class – with Emma’s step brother, George Knightley (Johnny Flynn), making his protest well known. Emma sees potential for something between Harriet and the vicar Mr. Elton (Josh O'Connor), who seems to show an interest, but in cascading, farcical, and emotional fashion, things fall apart, leaving our protagonist to try and make things right while learning some important things about herself along the way.

Emma is not only successfully laugh-out-loud funny, but earnestly emotionally.

This is very much a case of the filmmakers behind a project loving the source material and understanding that they need to get out of the way of its unfolding story, and it’s simply a brilliant experience. While always feeling entirely authentic to its time period, the banter between characters is effortlessly quick and witty, while wonders are done with well-drawn caricatures. Miranda Hart is fantastic as the trying-too-hard Miss Bates, regularly and unwittingly boring everyone around her to tears; and Bill Nighy’s Mr. Woodhouse is delightfully weird, regularly fighting a war in his own home against a persistent draft with a series of carefully aligned screens.

What’s so impressive about Emma , though, is that it’s able to make you consistently laugh out loud, but also deeply feel for the characters. There is a scene late in the film when a casually stated insult aimed at Miss Bates lands with face-melting devastation; and though we may laugh at Mr. Woodhouse’s eccentricity, the love he has for his daughter is palpable and universally relatable.

Anya Taylor-Joy continues to prove herself as an excellent young talent.

It’s an excellent cast through and through, with Mia Goth providing Harriet with a lovely naivety, and Johnny Flynn makes for a perfectly charming Mr. Knightley, but as the title suggests, Emma is Anya Taylor-Joy’s show, and she is outstanding. Thus far we have primarily watched the actress at the center of dark and horrific tales like The Witch , Split , and Thoroughbreds , but she noticeably brings a special lightness to the role that proves entirely necessary.

Emma is a fascinating character, as her egocentricity in tandem with her matchmaking creates a messy selfish altruism that is exciting to explore, and Anya Taylor-Joy does an amazing job capturing that very specific energy. Her being so self-centered doesn’t make her the easiest protagonist to fall in love with, but the journey that the actress takes with her over the course of the narrative accentuates the growth in her, and completely wins you over.

Emma is as beautiful as it is entertaining.

Making Emma all the more exciting is the fact that it marks the feature directorial debut of Autumn de Wilde. The filmmaker is far from a novice, having spent 15 years making music videos for bands and singers like Beck, The Raconteurs, and Florence + The Machine, but still it’s thrilling to see the emergence of someone in the medium with such bold style. As cold and intimidating the grand estates can be, de Wilde uncovers a homey quality that never undercuts the beauty or stateliness. The color palette at play is utterly mesmerizing, particularly an eye-popping use of yellow. It’s a stunning work visually through-and-through, and the kind of movie you could watch on mute.

Being released just a few months after Greta Gerwig ’s Little Women , Emma feels like it is arriving at the exact perfect time, and deserves similar recognition for being a marvelous take on a piece of classic literature that doesn’t take the work out of its original element. Autumn de Wilde, Anya Taylor-Joy and everyone else involved with the production absolutely do right by Jane Austen, and it’s deserving of a large audience for doing so.

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.

5 Reasons Why This Is The Greatest Time Ever To Be An American Godzilla Fan

William Shatner, John Carpenter And More Pay Tribute To Filmmaker Roger Corman After His Death At 98

Jensen Ackles' Arrival On CBS' Tracker Was Full Of Supernatural Easter Eggs, And I Can't Wait To Stream It Again

Emma review – Austen's sweet satire gets a multiplex makeover

Autumn de Wilde’s adaptation ramps up the comedy, but Anya Taylor-Joy remains wonderfully edgy as Jane Austen’s meddling heroine

W ith its heady mix of social satire, romantic intrigue and endlessly reinterpretable gender politics, Jane Austen’s 1815 novel Emma has long proved catnip for film-makers. The 2009 TV miniseries starring Romola Garai followed a string of small-screen productions, dating back to such offerings as a 1948 BBC “telefilm” with Judy Campbell. Recent big-screen adaptations have ranged from Douglas McGrath’s 1996 hit featuring Gwyneth Paltrow (for which composer Rachel Portman won an Oscar) to the 2010 Hindi-language romcom Aisha with Sonam Kapoor. For many, however, Amy Heckerling’s 1995 “queen bee” treat Clueless remains a favourite, astutely transposing the British riffs of Austen’s source to the modern milieu of an American high school.

This latest colourful incarnation boasts the remarkable Anya Taylor-Joy as Austen’s “handsome, clever and rich” heroine Emma Woodhouse, spoilt daughter of a doting widowed father, who has lived nearly 21 years “with very little to distress or vex her”. With no responsibility beyond the care of her draught-obsessed papa (a mournful Bill Nighy , dressed to accentuate his pipe-cleaner limbs), Emma entertains herself by match-making, presumptuously manipulating the relationships of those around her.

When the comparatively lowly Harriet (played by Mia Goth with an infantile innocence that extends from saucer-wide eyes to a gambolling playground gait) falls into Miss Woodhouse’s circle, Emma rudely diverts her from the course of true love. Instead, she sets her sights on the clearly unattainable – and entirely inappropriate – Mr Elton (Josh O’Connor, oozing insufferable divinity). Meanwhile, neighbouring friend-in-law Mr Knightley (Johnny Flynn, combining vulnerability with a weapons-grade animal magnetism notably absent from Austen’s novel) circles Emma with an air of both adoration and exasperation, lamenting her casual cruelty while secretly admiring her wit and beauty.

Directed by rock photographer and music-video veteran Autumn de Wilde, from a script by Man Booker prize winner Eleanor Catton , this latest Emma. (self-consciously styled in the title with a full stop) takes flirtatious liberties with Austen, to often hilarious effect. There’s a strong element of screwball comedy at play (De Wilde cites Bringing Up Baby as an inspiration alongside John Hughes’s coming-of-age movies), an approach that pays crowd-pleasing dividends, even as it reduces the complexities of the original text to a rather more caricatured screen romp.

Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma) with Johnny Flynn as Mr Knightley.

Having introduced Mr Knightley galloping gamely on a steed before watching him strip naked, De Wilde employs a mirrored bum-flashing motif that playfully suggests fleshy passions in her otherwise politely distanced leads. Later, the sturdy cinematic spectacle of dance doesn’t so much whisper what is left unsaid by the dialogue as scream it, ensuring that cinema audiences know exactly what’s going on, even as readers are still figuring it out. Elsewhere, scenes of near-slapstick mastication rub shoulders with moments in which existential unease mutates into something closer to sitcom-style silliness – flimsy, but great fun.

Musically, Emma. juxtaposes folk tunes with operatic voices as the action traverses social boundaries, with composers Isobel Waller-Bridge and David Schweitzer linking characters to instruments (a harp for Emma, a bassoon for Mr Knightley) in their cues. Live performances play a key role, too, from the piano duelling of Emma and Jane Fairfax (the multitalented Amber Anderson) to a duet in which Knightley sings and plays violin while Emma seethes silently from a distance.

The impressive ensemble cast includes Miranda Hart, who gets the balance between pathos and pratfalls just right as the loquacious but unjustly wounded Miss Bates. As the abrasive Mrs Elton, Tanya Reynolds deploys a raised chin and the merest hint of a sneer to excellent effect, while Callum Turner’s Frank Churchill is the cad incarnate.

In the lead role, Anya Taylor-Joy creates an admirably spiky character who is less likable than some of her screen predecessors, and all the better for it. There’s a touch of Liza Minnelli in the juxtaposition of Taylor-Joy’s angular face and window-to-the-soul eyes, something that enables her to telegraph contradictory emotions with apparent ease – a silent-movie quality perfectly suited to this role.

As production designer, Kave Quinn conjures a lavish environment in which the possibility of treading mud into cloistered enclaves remains a perceived threat, and costume designer Alexandra Byrne dresses the cast in a series of intrusively high collars that appear to offer everyone’s head on a platter – a neat visual metaphor for Austen’s guillotine-sharp social satire. The film may blunt some of the edges of that satire for the multiplex market, but it’s still in there, continuing to inspire new adaptations of what remains a timeless text.

Comedy films
Mark Kermode's film of the week
Jane Austen
Johnny Flynn
Period and historical films
Anya Taylor-Joy

Most viewed

‘Emma’ Review: An Austen Adaptation Tailored for Our Moment

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

That emphatic punctuation after the title — it’s technically called Emma., with a period — suggests that this gorgeously filmed, deliciously wicked, and sometimes wounding film version of Jane Austen’s literary classic may be the final word on the manipulative, matchmaking Miss Emma Woodhouse. Don’t count on it. Film versions of the writer’s fourth novel were practically a cottage industry in the mid-1990s: Gwyneth Paltrow played her on screen, Kate Beckinsale did the honors on TV and Alicia Silverstone immortally spun her into a Beverly Hills High School alpha in Clueless . (Romola Garai also had a go in a 2009 BBC miniseries.) No one skewered the so-called social graces like Austen, and the title character of her 1816 book may be the British novelist’s richest character. The author herself, however, always claimed the young woman was “a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.”

Even a genius can be wrong. As played by an incandescent Anya Taylor-Joy, Emma is a 20-year-old snob who enjoys arranging marriages for everyone but herself. She has her widowed, hypochondriac father (a priceless Bill Nighy) to care for — or is that just Emma’s excuse to live as free of constraints as any man? It’s a radical notion for its time and Taylor-Joy, so good at finding the seductive danger in wide-eyed beauty (see her in The Witch and Thoroughbreds ), has a ball confounding expectations about how a young lady of fortune should behave.

It helps that debuting feature filmmaker Autumn de Wilde, acclaimed as a rock photographer and director of music videos (Beck, Florence and the Machine), is equally adept at springing surprises. She’s more than willing to knock the stuffing out of her costume drama: When no one is looking, Emma’s not above raising her petticoats and warming her butt by a fire, and even Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn) is caught in his birthday suit as servants clothe him. Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley never speak of carnal desire (it’s a shock to the system when Emma actually refers to him as George), but the actors make sure their heat is felt. The rules of attraction apply when a gentleman calls out a lady on her bullshit and she lets him have it for not seeing her better qualities. It’s hard to define chemistry, but Taylor-Joy and Flynn — the singer-songwriter who plays David Bowie in the upcoming biopic Stardust — have it.

Editor’s picks

Every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term, the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history.

Working from a script by novelist Eleanor Catton, de Wilde adheres to the bones of Austen’s novel while making the events of two centuries ago sting with contemporary relevance. Like her creator, Emma knows in her bones that female independence should never be defined by marriage and social position. And yet they are the only tools she has at hand. She is appalled when Harriet Smith (Mia Goth), her orphaned protégé, seems willing to settle down as the wife of Mr. Martin (Connor Swindells), a local farmer. Emma wants Harriet to step up to Mr. Elton (a hilarious Josh O’Connor), a vicar who — much to Emma’s horror — lusts only for her. His revenge match with a controlling force of nature that is Mrs. Elton (Tanya Reynolds) is well deserved.

Still, nothing feels the edge of Austen’s satirical knife like Emma’s own hypocrisy. She lashes out at Harriet when she aspires too far above her station. There’s a biting touch when Harriet’s fellow students gather in red capes like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale, pawns in an eternal man’s game. Emma’s attraction to the devilish Frank Churchill (Callum Turner) is totally based on his wealth and his interest in her rival Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson). And the chill of her exasperation at perceived lesser beings is demonstrated in her casual cruelty to the harmless chatterbox Miss Bates (Miranda Hart). “Badly done,” says Knightley, infusing those two words with all the indignation he can muster.

Like the novel, de Wilde’s film is nothing less than the education of Miss Emma Woodhouse, whose rebukes are carried out with the formality of an execution. Even the alleged happy ending can’t disguise the limited choices of the heroine and the women of her time. Taylor-Joy is not out to make us like Emma, but to understand her — a far more challenging proposition. With the help of cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt, composers Isobel Waller-Bridge and David Schweitzer, and Alexandra Byrne’s spectacular costumes, the film captures the whirl of a predatory society that can no longer hide behind surface prettiness. That sounds a lot like right now.

Kelly Clarkson, Whoopi Goldberg Bond Over Health Journeys and Family Dynamics

WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU
By Tim Chan

Ali Wong Opened Up About Her Divorce, Dating Bill Hader at Sold Out Comedy Show

Laugh out loud
By Krystie Lee Yandoli

George Clooney to Make Broadway Debut in ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’

By Charisma Madarang

Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie Will Launch New Reality Series 20 Years After 'The Simple Life'

Ultimate Comeback
By Larisha Paul

'Black Twitter' Shows How the Platform Reshaped Our Culture. Where Have Those Voices Gone Today?

Hashtag History
By Kalia Richardson

Most Popular

Warner bros. to release new 'lord of the rings' movie 'the hunt for gollum' in 2026, peter jackson to produce and andy serkis to direct, peter jackson working on new 'lord of the rings' films for warner bros., targeting 2026 debut, george & amal clooney’s latest parenting decision shows hollywood won’t be in their future, insiders claim, near the giza pyramids, archaeologists identify a newly discovered ancient egyptian structure, you might also like, nicolas cage, heather graham, stephen dorff saddle up for western ‘the gunslingers,’ brilliant pictures launching in cannes (exclusive), exclusive: lanvin opens a boutique in cannes, steps away from where jeanne lanvin set up shop in the 1920s, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, would adding ‘apes’ character koba make other movies better social media seems to think so, the brewing battle for the wnba’s soul.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Entertainment

Emma review: Comedy of manners is dazzling and witty but doesn't dig deep

If this effervescent Austen adaptation is guilty of one thing, it's that it's too devoted to its source material.

Anya Taylor-Joy, right, has the title role in Emma. Mia Goth, left, plays Harriet, who's Emma's personal project.

Emma , in theaters now, gets one thing straight immediately: If you can relate to its heroine, you're living a better life than most. Director Autumn de Wilde lays out her cards by emblazoning the opening lines of Jane Austen's 1815 novel across the screen. Emma Woodhouse is "handsome, clever and rich." Deal with it.

If you find it strange to be invited to sympathize with a manipulative heiress in 19th-century rural England, you're not alone. Austen herself described her title character as "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." Emma lives in a big fancy house, and her main occupation is messing around with other people's love lives. She has the kind of problems most people would kill for, and she's often unsympathetic. But you might just like her despite all that.

Anya Taylor-Joy (known for The Witch and Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance ) revels in the lead role, pouting and cajoling her way through life and wreaking charming havoc wherever she goes. But she also shows us Emma's redeeming features: She's devoted to her hypochondriac father ( Bill Nighy ), keenly aware of her own failings and sincerely regretful when she's careless with her friends' feelings.

Chief among those friends is Harriet Smith ( Suspiria's Mia Goth ). The unsophisticated schoolgirl, adopted by Emma as a kind of personal project, is the emotional heart of the film. As Emma schemes to find Harriet a husband, we watch Harriet grow into a poised young woman with manners fit to rival Emma's own. Goth's Harriet is sweet, funny and too trusting for her own good, giving Emma's matchmaking antics a real sense of jeopardy.

Also caught up in Emma's schemes are the town's bachelors. Johnny Flynn's standoffish Knightley is unexpectedly vulnerable in his role as the voice of Emma's conscience. He's not afraid to argue with Emma, but his respect for her is never in question. Meanwhile, The Crown's Josh O'Connor is gleefully unhinged as the snobbish vicar Emma sets her sights on for Harriet.

emma-sd26-1-14-1-sc093-01355486-cc-v02-r

Emma's hypochondriac father (Bill Nighy) is ever vigilant against cold air and "unwholesome" food.

Rounding out the comic roles are familiar faces from British TV and film. Miranda Hart pulls off the tricky feat of making her good-natured but irritating spinster character watchable and sympathetic. A gently imperious Nighy steals all of his scenes as Emma's doting father, a man so alert to the risk of catching a cold he can feel drafts in the warmest room. And Sex Education's Tanya Reynolds is gloriously vain as Mrs. Elton, a newcomer to the town who outrages Emma with her unforgivable vulgarity despite outmaneuvering her socially.

De Wilde is best known for her quirky and striking music videos, ad campaigns and portrait photography . So it's no surprise her take on Austen's classic novel amps up the idyllic pastoral aesthetic. The film is visually stunning, but it's also directed with an arch humor, the characters' flaws contrasting with their picturesque surroundings. Isobel Waller-Bridge and David Schweitzer set the tone with their sumptuous score, which fills Emma's world with orchestral chamber pieces, opera and earthy folk tunes.

Every detail in this vision of rural England is Instagram-perfect, from the sublime hilltop views to the hand-chosen floral arrangements. Even the sheep look fluffier than usual. But for all the time Emma spends strolling through grand courtyards and gazing through oversized windows, her privileged world is stiflingly small.

Josh O'Connor and Tanya Reynolds make for socially awkward social climbers.

People in this tightly knit community obsess over every new arrival in town. They compare the sizes of their inheritances and gossip about their single neighbors' love lives. They fiercely repress their feelings -- at least until those feelings boil over into undignified outbursts -- and exchange extravagant gifts in secret. Piano recitals and church pews become silent battlegrounds as Emma sets out to elegantly one-up her rivals.

De Wilde is as ruthless as Austen in observing these polite bloodsports, with heightened performances that occasionally verge on grotesque. Long, awkward scenes draw out every painful silence, mercilessly exposing every mispronounced word, strange mannerism and underhanded insult. Not even Emma -- an artist and pianist, but not particularly impressive in either pursuit -- escapes the audience's scrutiny.

Yes, this comedy also has some romance, if you like that sort of thing.

Yes, everyone in town is obsessed with marriage, but this is a comedy of manners first and foremost. The film seems determined to undercut its romance with offbeat humor. The most touching scenes don't come with the dramatic declarations of love, but during quieter moments between characters.

The film is slickly paced and undeniably devoted to its source material. But this can lead to the occasional missed opportunity. Harriet's interest in an unnamed gentleman hints that she and Emma could be drawn into a Midsummer Night's Dream-style love quadrangle, complete with mistaken identities and miscommunication. There's a hint of confusion and tension, but the thread is dropped before it can develop.

By putting Emma's relationship with Harriet at its center, de Wilde also hints at the damage Emma's done by meddling in her friend's life and feelings. She avoids dwelling too deeply on that harm, however, or on the questions it raises. Maybe we do like Emma, flaws and all. But should we?

And perhaps that's the film's biggest fault: Like its heroine, it's beautiful, witty and precisely calculated to please. But, also like Emma, it might benefit from applying its talents beyond the surface.

New Movies Coming in 2023 From Marvel, Netflix, DC and More

Originally published Feb. 13.

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission.

Not Quite Revisionist, Not Quite Faithful, Emma. Is an Eventual Delight

The characters in the new Emma. show off more skin than you might expect from a Jane Austen adaptation. To be sure, other takes on the author’s work have tried to add some sizzle to all that Regency-era restraint — consider Colin Firth emerging from the lake in that shirt in the 1995 BBC Pride & Prejudice , a scene enshrined in statuary . Or consider the 2005 Keira Knightley–Matthew Macfadyen version, whose U.S.-only ending enraged purists by showing the newly married Darcys sharing some quite possibly postcoital kisses. But the nudity in Emma. isn’t intended to titillate. It’s mischievously matter-of-fact, more of an accompaniment to the main comedy of manners than a means of goosing it for modern sensibilities. The “handsome, clever, and rich” 20-year-old of the title (Anya Taylor-Joy) seizes a private moment after she’s dressed to hike her gown back up and warm her bare backside by the fire. Her friend, lecturer, and eventual lover Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn) is first seen stripping down after a ride and then being helped into a new outfit by his valet. These moments underscore the luxurious norms of a gentry existence, getting dressed like living dolls by barely acknowledged servants. But they also emphasize that these characters do indeed have bodies beneath those empire waist gowns and carefully tied cravats, regardless of how much they pretend their lives have only to do with the mind.

Emma . occupies a perplexing if ultimately pleasurable spot on the Austen industrial complex’s twin axes of faithful/revisionist and realistic/stylized. The film is the directorial debut of photographer and music videographer Autumn de Wilde, with a script written by The Luminaries novelist Eleanor Catton, and it’s far from staid. The muted pastels of de Wilde’s palette and the flat precision of her compositions are so intensely of the moment that when the title appears onscreen, in a serif font in millennial pink, it looks like it could be an ad for a start-up that’s setting out to disrupt houseplants (and no, the punctuation is not optional). The tone aims for an absurdity that at its heights can recall The Favourite without the despair, especially when its characters scurry across the idyllic countryside, dwarfed by a vast stretch of sky, or when Knightley flings himself onto the floor of his estate in boneless exasperation after a ball. It’s all very droll, though it can also feel distant, as though the romance at its core can only be reached by peeling away layers of irony. At its weakest, it’s the costume-drama equivalent of seeing an old movie with an audience that laughs at everything that’s out of date.

At its best, it’s effervescent. Leads Taylor-Joy (an inevitable future star) and Flynn (perfectly sad-eyed) are lovable and surrounded by some very funny supporting performances from Mia Goth as Emma’s friend and underling, Harriet, Miranda Hart as the garrulous Miss Bates, and Bill Nighy as Emma’s adoring dad. There is, however, a reason that the most successful adaptation of Austen’s 1816 novel is Clueless , which extracted the story from its 19th-century setting and transposed it to a ’90s Beverly Hills high school. As source material, Emma has a lightness that’s deceptive — a seemingly breezy story about a young woman with “very little to distress or vex her,” per the description with which both the book and the film start, whose fumbled attempts at matchmaking eventually lead her to personal realizations and a wedding of her own. But marriage, in Austen’s work, has always been a weighty matter underneath the talk of love and character, as much an economic proposition as an emotional one.

Emma is a rare figure in the privileged position of not being required to marry. As an adaptation, Emma. has an easier time treating the whole milieu as ridiculous than teasing out the seriousness of its stakes. But it’s only in allowing the more human vulnerabilities of its main characters to come to the forefront that the film really comes together, showing them not as a preordained match but two people shaken out of a comfortable stasis and forced to reckon with their true feelings. If Emma gets a comeuppance, it’s made clear that Knightley gets one of his own as well, admitting to his paternalistic tendencies and surrendering his aloof independence. When the pair finally get their big scene together under the trees, de Wilde undercuts the passionate confession with a decidedly unfanciful nosebleed. But in that case, it doesn’t feel like a puncturing of the grand romance so much as it does another reminder that these characters are meant to be recognizable, despite the exotic world through which they’ve been moving. There are bodies under there, after all.

vulture homepage lede
movie review
anya taylor joy

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

Lower case letters (a-z)
Upper case letters (A-Z)
Numbers (0-9)
Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

For Parents
For Educators
Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

Get the app
Movie Reviews
Best Movie Lists
Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best TV Lists
Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
Common Sense Selections for TV
Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

Book Reviews
Best Book Lists
Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Game Reviews
Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Podcast Reviews
Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

App Reviews
Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

YouTube Channel Reviews
YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

Explaining the News to Our Kids

Family Tech Planners
Digital Skills
All Articles
Latino Culture
Black Voices
Asian Stories
Native Narratives
LGBTQ+ Pride
Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Common sense media reviewers.

Perfect for warmhearted family entertainment.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Love is not always something that can be planned o

Emma is good-natured and has a kind heart, but is

Two genteel ladies are roughed up by a band of ruf

No sex, but many, many discussions about matchmaki

No swearing. A key point of the film is that peopl

Some social drinking. A gentleman's ardent, but un

Positive Messages

Love is not always something that can be planned out, and Emma's efforts to steer people together don't often end up as planned. Instead, love seems to sneak up on people without her aid. Even upon Emma, to her great surprise. Although much of the film is focused on planning, gossiping, and debating the merits of various relationships, based partly on love, and also on class distinctions, status, and wealth, there are also themes of communication, empathy, and humility.

Positive Role Models

Emma is good-natured and has a kind heart, but is not always sensitive to others. Her main goal seems to be to find suitable partners for the eligible men and women in her social circle, which means she spends a good deal of time gossiping about other people and trying (not always successfully) to interpret how they feel. She often tries to pair off people who have eyes for others, and is reluctant to admit her pairing is less than ideal. Most important, she seems unable to realize that there are people who might be interested in her.

Violence & Scariness

Two genteel ladies are roughed up by a band of ruffians, until a gentleman comes to their aid.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

No sex, but many, many discussions about matchmaking, and with whom various people would be compatible.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

No swearing. A key point of the film is that people rarely say what they really think, often leading to misunderstandings. People can also make very cutting remarks, cleverly disguised by wit, but barbed nonetheless.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Some social drinking. A gentleman's ardent, but unappreciated, declaration of love is blamed on an overindulgence in wine.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Emma is a sweet-natured period film that may not have much appeal to tweens and younger. Teens, especially those enamored of Jane Austen 's novels, on which this is based, might find it enormously appealing. It revolves around manners, society, and of course romance. There's much discussion about matchmaking but no onscreen canoodling. The only language issue is that some of the people circle around what they're trying to say without actually saying it, which may be confusing. Expect some social drinking; one character blames a social gaffe on having had too much wine. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (5)
Kids say (8)

Based on 5 parent reviews

Always loved this movie but love it even more since seeing the remake!

What's the story.

In this adaptation of Jane Austen's novel , young EMMA Woodhouse ( Gwyneth Paltrow ) thinks she knows everything about love and deems herself matchmaker to her friends. She fixes up Harriet ( Toni Collette ) with Reverend Elton ( Alan Cumming ) and pairs her governess with Mr. Weston ( James Cosmo ). But Emma learns that she isn't as successful in the ways of love as she'd believed, especially when it comes to handsome Mr. Knightly ( Jeremy Northam ).

Is It Any Good?

This romantic movie is worthy, warmhearted family entertainment. As Emma , Paltrow is stunning -- funny and charming, but brave enough to give full weight to her character's occasional smallness and snobbery. Toni Collette , Alan Cumming , and Sophie Thompson ( as jabbering spinster Miss Bate) all turn in skilled comic performances.

While the story may seem a bit highbrow to attract a young audience, kids will warm to it. The mysterious behavior of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax will catch their interest, and they'll find characters to identify with, regardless of the occasionally highfalutin dialogue. With its spectacular interiors and gorgeous swaths of English countryside, viewers with reasonable attention spans will find plenty to like. While die-hard Austen fans may cast a vote for the BBC version of Emma , this is a much more appealing version for a general audience.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about whether Emma and Austen's other stories remain relevant today. What aspects are relatable in the modern world?

What do you think about Emma's hobby of setting up matches? Do you think she finds good pairs? Do you think the recipients of her attention appreciate her efforts?

Why is Emma unable to see her own romantic possibilities?

What do you think about the manners of the era? How do they differ from contemporary mores?

How does Emma demonstrate communication , empathy , and humility ? Why are these important character strengths ?

Movie Details

In theaters : August 2, 1996
On DVD or streaming : January 5, 1999
Cast : Alan Cumming , Gwyneth Paltrow , Toni Collette
Director : Douglas McGrath
Inclusion Information : Bisexual actors, Female actors
Studio : Miramax
Genre : Romance
Topics : Book Characters
Character Strengths : Communication , Empathy , Humility
Run time : 120 minutes
MPAA rating : PG
MPAA explanation : for brief mild language
Last updated : March 8, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

Pride & Prejudice

Want personalized picks for your kids' age and interests?

Mansfield Park

Sense and Sensibility

Love stories: classic romance tales, classic books for kids, related topics.

Communication
Book Characters

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Screen Rant

Every emma movie adaptation ranked from worst to best (including clueless).

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

10 Best Jane Austen Movie Adaptations

Emma: how each character is supposed to look, how emma 2020 compares to jane austen's book: biggest differences.

Emma (2020) is a decadent reimagining that balances contemporary sensibilities and progressive themes with Austen's classic tale.
Gwyneth Paltrow's Emma (1996) is visually stunning but suffers from lukewarm chemistry and a staid portrayal of Mr. Knightley.
Clueless (1995) remains the best and most creative modern adaptation of Austen's Emma, updating the story for a new generation.

Jane Austen's classic novel Emma has been adapted into multiple movies, some greater than others. Every few years, Hollywood dives back into the bodiced world of Regency England to resuscitate one of Jane Austen's spunky, whimsical heroines — with the most recent lavish restoration going to Autumn de Wilde's version, Emma (2020), starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the captivating conductress of romantic ruination. It's the classic tale of pride, privilege, and one irrepressibly likable heroine. Every generation has their favorite version of Austen's story and picking one Emma movie adaptation over another isn't an easy task for fans.

Published in 1815, Emma follows the story of 21-year-old Emma Woodhouse, a wealthy but bored socialite who rejects the idea of marriage yet takes great pride and pleasure in the art of matchmaking. Emma lives at home with her aging father, interfering in love affairs and deflecting the guidance of her treasured friend and brother-in-law, George Knightley. Although Austen published only six novels during her literary career, all of them have received reverent adaptations; and Emma remains one of her most beloved and adapted works.

Despite only completing six novels in her lifetime, Jane Austen left a remarkable legacy, and her novels have been adapted into countless movies.

Aisha (2010)

Directed by rajshree ojha.

Definitely the least well-known Emma movie adaptation , at least among English-speaking audiences, is 2010's Aisha , a Bollywood production. Aisha is a bit of a strange animal when it comes to Emma movies, as it's actually not an adaptation of Austen's story in the more direct sense of that word. Instead, Aisha is basically an Indian remake of Clueless , and sports very close similarities to that 1995 western hit. The central character, a young woman named Aisha Kapoor (played by Sonam Kapoor), is a clear stand-in for Alicia Silverstone's Cher, complete with her love of being a matchmaker.

To be sure, Bollywood remakes of American movies are nothing new, and certainly aren't a bad idea. Aisha was a sizable financial success in its native India, and drew decent reviews, if not great ones. Still, it hews so close to the tone and style of Clueless that outside of those who speak Hindi and not English, and those who just plain love Bollywood movies, Aisha feels a bit pointless. Those interested in watching Clueless would be better served to watch the original movie than a remake.

Aisha is available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime and Vudu.

Emma (1996)

Directed by douglas mcgrath.

Douglas McGrath's Emma (1996) is visual eye candy and one of the most romanticized and syrupy versions of Austen's novel. The film's idyllic setting, detailed set design, and sumptuous visuals ante up the romance while the cast prances about the lush estates of Hartfield, Randalls, and Donwell Abbey in their period finery. With rosebud cheeks and the smug self-assurance worthy of the actress, model, and lifestyle maven herself, Gwyneth Paltrow delivers one of her best performances as a saccharine, bubbly Emma , who is wholly aware and perfectly delighted with her egotistical influence.

Paltrow's Emma captures the sweet naivety and self-satisfaction of the meddlesome heroine as she flirts with Jeremy Northam's reserved Mr. Knightley and cajoles Toni Collette's vacuous Harriet into ill-advised conquest. Although the film is visually stunning and Northam looks dapper in his tailcoat and calf-high boots, his staid representation of Emma's eventual love interest comes off a bit boring compared with other versions and feels at odds with Paltrow's animated performance.

Emma ultimately suffers from the lukewarm chemistry of its leads , which halts any real emotional momentum from building. All the same, Paltrow looks elegant in her pastel gowns and elevates the film's likability with her light-hearted Disney princess version of Austen's heroine.

Emma is available to stream on Showtime.

Do the actors taking over the roles of Jane Austen's famous characters actually look like they did in the novel? Let's find out.

Directed By Diarmuid Lawrence

The British TV network ITV released its TV movie version around the same time Gwyneth Paltrow's swan-necked Emma was gracing theater screens, and it would later air on A&E in the U.S. This lesser-known version outranks its big-screen competitor by offering a more realistic and dramatic version, administering special attention to the social customs and strict decorum of Regency England.

Future action-star Kate Beckinsale 's brunette Emma is appropriately girlish, idealistic, and stubborn — if a little more snobbish than other versions of the character. Although the adaptation is engaging, capturing the fanciful imagination and inner workings of Austen's interfering ingenue, Beckinsale's Emma doesn't offer any progressive emotional development until the end of the film and doesn't quite achieve the contradictory nuances demonstrated by other portrayals.

Another facet that docks points from the score of this adaptation is Mark Strong's overly stern interpretation of Mr. Knightley, which at times borders on Dickensian proportions. His imposing presence and fierce admonishments weigh down the fun and humor of Austen's original material.

Emma makes for an enjoyable watch and the set features fine details and lovely costumes befitting the time period. However, the direction fails to extract much of Austen's light-hearted humor, and the curtailed character arcs of Emma and Mr. Knightley belie the emotional transformations of both characters in the book . Although still considered a beloved version by fans and critics, the film robs viewers of the novel's satisfactory ending.

Emma is available to rent or purchase through Redbox.

Emma (2020)

Directed by autumn de wilde.

The newest Emma movie adaptation is a decadent reimagining directed by Autumn de Wilde that stars Anya Taylor-Joy as a coy and captivating Emma, who perfectly translates the heroine's unlikable traits of self-absorption and indulgent snobbery in a precocious, but likable way. (Austen herself admitted the character of Emma was " a heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ")

Replete with jewel-toned costumes and droll hilarity, Austen's tale gets a 21st-century treatment thanks to a clever script adapted by Eleanor Catton that delivers on progressive themes like female empowerment and challenges the sexist laws and social hierarchies of Austen's time. By shifting sex politics and rotating gender power dynamics of the Georgian and Regency-era, de Wilde and Catton balance out stale fixtures of the period drama genre and correlate contemporary sensibilities within the centuries-old material.

Mr. Knightley is portrayed with sincerity by Johnny Flynn, who imbues the gentleman farmer with a refreshing artlessness that is striking against the cavalier representations of privileged gentlemen in Austen adaptations. The chemistry between Taylor-Joy and Flynn is electric and volatile ; a ballroom scene sizzles with all the heat, passion, and awkwardness of genuine romance.

The supporting cast is delightfully hilarious, specifically Bill Nighy's scene-chewing eccentricities as the neurotic Mr. Woodhouse, and evoke a physical comedy and stylish slapstick reminiscent of Hollywood's early screwball comedies. A seamless blend of art, bold artistic choices, and audacious entertainment, Emma (2020) should not be missed , with it making Screen Rant's picks for the most underrated movies of 2020 .

Emma is available to stream through DirecTV.

Autumn de Wilde's Emma updates Jane Austen's beloved tale of romance and comedy in Regency England, but how is the new film different from the book?

Clueless (1995)

Directed By Amy Heckerling

Amy Heckerling's 1995 cult-classic Clueless is a brilliant contemporary adaptation of Emma that reignites the novel's cultural relevance by giving the story and heroine a 20th-century makeover — exposing a new generation to Austen's literary work while simultaneously upgrading teenage lexicons with words like " whatever, " " totally buggin," and " as if! " Although more than 25-years-old, Clueless remains the best, most creative version of Austen's Emma , and also the definitive modern take on it, despite Aisha 's best efforts.

Clueless updates the world and status of Emma Woodhouse from a wealthy Regency-era socialite lording over the quaint town of Highbury to the 16-year-old valley girl, Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone). Cher reigns as the most popular girl at her sprawling Beverly Hills high school. She still has the same narcissistic flair and ease of manners as Austen's original protagonist.

Silverstone's portrayal of the rich, spoiled, and unflappable Cher is endearing and relatable, and brings a fresh take to the character. Cher's story is swapping corsets for miniskirts and changing Emma's aversion to matrimony to Cher's unwillingness to date high school boys. Likewise, Paul Rudd's depiction of a cool 20th-century Mr. Knightley — now a '90s counterculture college intellectual renamed Josh — works surprisingly well, even if he's the sneaky hot step-brother to Cher's petulant, self-absorbed teen queen.

Although Clueless omits some elements from Austen's work, like Jane Fairfax, Box Hill, and the pianoforte debacle, the glib dialogue and whip-smart satire poke fun at the superficiality and self-interest of bored rich kids, much in the same way Austen's work satirized the extravagances of the British landed gentry.

With tongue-in-cheek acerbity, Austen's novel and Heckerling's film still manage to spotlight the overall good-heartedness and authenticity of the characters it parodies, even through accidental jokes that weren't in Clueless ' script . Austen never took her stories too seriously, and Heckerling's film marches to a similar rhythm. Clueless succeeds as the best movie adaptation of Emma because it transforms the original material in unexpected ways, while maintaining the original themes, inherent likability, and essence of Austen's beloved characters.

Clueless is available to stream on Paramount+.

SR Originals

Other Media Review

Movie review: emma (2020).

by Carrie S · Mar 6, 2020 at 4:00 am · View all 23 comments

by Eleanor Catton (screenplay), Jane Austen (novel)

Let’s get this out of the way – Clueless remains the best film adaptation of Emma , the novel by Jane Austen, to date, in terms of capturing the essence of the novel’s title character.

Having said that, the current (2020) version offers sumptuous scenery, costuming, and staging, gorgeous cinematography, some adept historical touches, and nuanced acting. I sometimes disagreed with the film’s interpretation of Emma Woodhouse, but never with actress Anya Taylor-Joy’s actual performance, in which she is able, through the slightest sigh, to convey vast quantities of emotion.

Emma. is the story of Emma Woodhouse, a young, rich, beautiful, inexperienced woman who believes that she is an infallible matchmaker. As presented in the movie, Emma strolls about her home, garden, and town, trailed by servants, in utter control of her every emotion. Her hair is so tightly and perfectly curled that it looks like Top Ramen. Her skin is flawless, her lips a perfect Cupid’s bow, her eyes as large as a Disney cartoon character. Yes, I have a huge crush on her, but my point is that she is coiffed and dressed and pushed and poised into such perfection that she might as well be a very bored, repressed, and controlling Barbie doll.

This idea of visual perfection matched with inner unease pervades the movie. The clothes are incredible. Watch this movie just for the costuming. However, even though everyone is beautifully dressed, they always seem either too hot or too cold, and Mr. Knightley in particular is clearly confined and frustrated by his constraining attire.

In terms of decor, Mr. Knightley’s home is a museum, filled with art, dust cloths, and loneliness. Emma’s home is constantly monitored for drafts by her vigilant, hypochondriac father. There is a lot of food in the movie, all of it elaborately presented, but I only counted food going into a mouth three times: once to expose a character’s social shortcomings, once as a distraction from a painful topic, and once as an act of flirtation.

Back to the plot. Emma decides that her calling is to be a matchmaker. She takes under her wing a young woman named Harriet, who is of uncertain parentage and has no fortune, but who is ready to worship Emma. Harriet likes a farmer who returns her interest, but Emma insists that Harriet might set her sights higher – even as far as the vicar, Mr. Elton. Meanwhile Emma is intensely interested in the mysterious Frank Churchill, a young man who is due to inherit enormous wealth but who never comes to visit his parents. All this is much against the advice of Mr. Knightley, a friend of Emma’s father. In a world which revolves around appreciating Emma in every way, only Mr. Knightley shows disapproval, and they argue with the passion of two people who rather enjoy it right up until their arguments hit too close to home.

Hotness alert:

In the book, Mr. Knightley is sixteen years older than Emma and most famous for at one point snapping, “Badly done, Emma!” as though she’s a poodle who just peed on his carpet. In the movie, the first we see of Mr. Knightley is his bare behind as he’s being dressed by servants, and he seems closer in age to Emma, so when he tells her “Badly done!” he seems not just disappointed but truly angry and sad and frustrated. Indeed this Knightley is ALL ABOUT sexual frustration and random acts of kindness, which is quite a swoonworthy combination.

A big change in this adaptation is that it is more cynical and hard-edged than others, a change which is mostly manifested in an Emma, who is a little bit mean and constantly frustrated. Even at the start of the movie, it’s evident that she should not be running a house, nor caring for her father, and certainly not matchmaking. She should be leading armies into battle. She should be on the bridge of a Starship bluffing hostile aliens. She is a Force of Nature without an outlet, and this makes her selfish and callous.

My problem with this film lies in its failure to elucidate the point that Emma is a good person who means well, which is a central point of the book. Anya Tayor-Joy, whom I adore in all things, has a history of playing stone-cold killers and this is evident in the movie. Every time she is crossed, she gets a look that means someone is gonna pay in blood for crossing her. Yes, I enjoyed this quality, but no, it’s not true to the book character. The Emma of this movie is warm towards her father, but otherwise she’s rather mean initially, having few sincere feelings towards Harriet and acting purely selfishly. It’s not until the last section of the film (after being called out by Knightley for a cruel jest at Miss Bates’ expense), that she becomes a softer person, being truly kind and selfless towards Harriet and atoning for her wrongs to various characters by deed as well as word.

Emma and Harriet on a couch in front of an enormous painiting

As enjoyable as the cast is (the supporting cast is a dream!), the most interesting aspect of this movie is the staging. The movie is composed of many formal shots that illustrate everything from the dissonance between feeling and appearance, to the emotional yearning between characters, to the smallness of the village in which the characters reside. This is a movie that would probably benefit from a re-watch. Although the formal shots run the risk of creating a static environment (some of the shots seem made to live as screenshots on the Internet rather than as part of a flowing narrative) the formality highlights the constraints in which the characters live.

Of course the real questions behind an adaptation of Emma is: does the romance work, and is the movie funny, and how are the clothes? The answer, respectively is: yes, yes, and amazing. Regency and romance fans should be very happy here.

For more about costuming check out this Vox article. And if so inclined, check out my ebook, Pride, Prejudice, and Popcorn: TV and Film Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights ( A | BN | K | G | AB ).

Add Your Comment →

I adore Clueless. I think a lot of people have a soft spot for Paul Rudd because of that movie.

It’s been years since I’ve read Emma. The only part that I remember is that I hated her character 2/3 of the way through. Clueless made her likeable early on.

I think it’s hard to portray someone of immense privilege sympathetically. Clueless managed to pull this off wonderfully; Cher was clearly spoilt and rich and more than a little myopic, but always well-intentioned.

Interesting! I’ve read “Emma” twice and actually felt violent dislike for her character both times. Maybe I’ll like this adaptation. P.S. I LOVED Clueless, but never felt Emma was as endearing as Cher.

For me the Romola Garai take on it is superior, but I’m going to give this a second shot when it hits home media.

I admit to disliking literally every incarnation of ‘Emma’, including Clueless. I am going to see this PURELY for the joy that is Miranda Hart. And if you haven’t treated yourself to her sadly short-lived show ‘Miranda’, it is currently on Hulu.

I adore Clueless, but I love the Romola Garai/Jonny Lee Miller even better. It is very easy to make Emma unlikeable and for Mr Knightly to come across as too old and too bossy, but I thought that that version did a good job of making Emma likeable (if exasperating) and making Mr Knightly a genuinely good friend who expresses genuine disappointment.

I loved the movie! It was a great adaptation that accurately portrayed Emma from the book. And it was so beautiful, I was frequently distracted by the scrumptious details. I loved Clueless as a standalone movie. However, it’s status as the best adaptation is questionable – being that it’s palatability stems from the fact that Cher is inherently more likable and sympathetic than Emma.

The titular character’s complex nature is why ‘Emma’ is one of my favorite novels. Her boredom and repression result in her meddling in the lives of others; I won’t deny that she means well, but I think that “good person who means well” is a better description of Cher than Emma. Emma is very aware of her place in the social structure of early 19th century Highbury. Here are a couple of quotes that showcase her snobbery:

“The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do. A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me; I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other. But a farmer can need none of my help, and is therefore in one sense as much above my notice as in every other he is below it.”

“The Coles had been settled some years in Highbury, and were very good sort of people–friendly, liberal, and unpretending; but, on the other hand, they were of low origin, in trade, and only moderately genteel…but they ought to be taught that it was not for them to arrange the terms on which the superior families would visit them. This lesson, she very much feared, they would receive only from herself; she had little hope of Mr. Knightley, none of Mr. Weston.”

The 2020 adaptation does a really great job of showing how Emma grows and comes to see the world beyond herself. In fact, the addition near the end that Harriet’s father is in trade, and Emma’s acceptance of it shows her growth to a greater extent than the novel.

P.S. Interestingly, there’s a 13-year age gap between Anya Taylor-Joy and Johnny Flynn. I was pretty surprised by this, as they looked to be closer in age.

This is my favourite adaption of Emma – I don’t think Emma is a romance, really – it’s more like chick lit, and – the way I read it – the friendship with Harriet is so much more central than the romance with Mr Knightley. Most adaptions don’t give you that sense that Emma and Harriet have that intense relationship. I bought into the friendship in this adaption. And I really liked Miranda Hart’s Miss Bates. I think Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill have been better in other adaptions – maybe it’s one of the problems when you make Mr Knightley so luscious (which I enjoyed) is that you lose the idea that Emma tries to fall for Frank because she has so few options. I didn’t get the sense that Emma sees Knightley as a family member at first. (Clueless does that beautifully.) Overall, I really enjoyed it.

I thought Jane Austen actually intended for Emma to be unlikeable from the start. Didn’t she say when she was writing the book that she was writing about a character “only myself will like”?

The only non- Clueless adaptation of Emma that I’ve ever seen is the Gwyneth Paltrow one, which I know everyone hates but I kind of love purely because of Jeremy Northam as Knightley. I rewatch it sometimes just to stare at him and I am not ashamed! (Alas, the Knightley in this adaptation doesn’t do anything for me at all.)

@SaraW: likewise! 🙂 I’m not a big Emma fan in general, but will 100% see this if only for Miranda. (Who always seems a total delight of a human being outside of her characters as well — she’s one of several comedians who dedicate time on holidays to supporting people online who are alone, lonely and struggling on those days, to make sure they have someone to talk to, and she has a newsletter that seems to focus entirely on happy news and positivity and trying to love yourself a little bit more.)

@Lucy: Thank you for mentioning Miranda’s newsletter! It led me to her website, and her books, and twitter, and and… Emerging from (such fun!) internet rabbit hole, I had to share some of the joy: https://twitter.com/mermhart/status/1230100947361288192

I agree with the review and nearly all the comments (yes to Clueless and yes to Romola Garai/Jonny Lee Miller version, love Miranda! Pure costume porn!). In this version you really got the sense that servants are viewed as wallpaper and yet we see them as individuals (especially the two footmen). I also loved that they brought Emma’s sister to Highbury and the hypochrondria does not fall from the drafty tree.

Agreed (@Star) that Emma was not written to be a “likable” or even “sympathetic” protagonist. The text invites the reader to judge/laugh at her blunders, in which case, it’s always a bit of a gamble whether the reader responds favorably to the character afterwards. But hey, some of us have a soft spot for the f*ckups. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Speaking for myself, I tend to like the Emma Woodhouses and feel less favorably inclined towards Catherine Morland, who I think was also deliberately written to be “unlilkeable.”

Emma gets an A rating from me…I disregarded Covid19 to see it a second time (probably my last theater jaunt for awhile). Here’s why I loved it…

1. Johnny Flynn deployed unselfconscious weapons grade sex appeal. He is 36–close to Knightley’s book age…and much older than Taylor-Joy. His bare bum dressing scene with his valet indulges the female gaze while showing this suitor “suiting” up in clothing barely less confining than a young lady’s finery. YES, no one wore underwear!

2. The costumes are spot on accurate…I have seen the source material from the V&A, Met Museum, etc. That alone was well worth a second look.

3. Charming performances and humor, humor, humor!

4. My sold out opening night audience GASPED and GROANED when Emma dissed Miss Bates at the picnic…well done Ms. de Wilde for showing us Emma’s journey to enlightenment.

If this movie is a B+, please publish your A list. I must see them all.

I think I’d have trouble watching this version of Emma. That brooding shot looks exactly like my nephew at 18.

I ADORE Jane Austen, but always had trouble with Emma. I finally got over it watching the Gwyneth Paltrow version. I also squealed with joy when I found my very own copy of Clueless and forced my son to watch it with me. We were very impressed that Paul Rudd looks EXACTLY the same then as he does in Ant Man. What moisturiser does that man use?

I really love the 1996 movie version with Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeremy Northam so I have been putting off seeing this version as I was afraid the creators were too intent on “putting their own mark” on it. In my opinion when movie makers say this about a Jane Austen adaptation it usually means talking all the Austen dialogue out of the movie and making up their own (cough, Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice Cough).

One of the things I loved about Jeremy Northam’s Mr. Knightly is how sad and pained he is to tell Emma “badly done.” It’s hurting him as much to have to say it to her. Gwyneth’s Emma is spoiled and selfish but never mean on purpose (with the exception of her snarky remark to Miss Bates). She truly thinks she is doing good. I am a bit hesitant to see Anja Taylor Joy’s more strident take on her as Emma is a difficult balancing act.

My favorite version so far has been the Romola Garai/Jonny Lee Miller one, though I do adore clueless too.

Saw it today and enjoyed it for what it was.

Thanks for this thoughtful and well illustrated review.

Reese Witherspoon is one of those actors who can play a character doing unlikable things, and yet still come across as likeable. Meg Ryan was good at that when she did all the romantic comedies in the 80s. For men, it’s John Cusack and Owen Wilson, in my opinion.

As much as I agree about Clueless being one of the most faithful adaptations of the spirit of the book, gold standard for me remains the Kate Beckinsale/Mark Strong version.

[SPOILERS? Maybe?]

In any case I found Mr Knightley’s proposal in the Anja Taylor-Joy film somewhat…underwhelming? I felt the force of their emotion but it felt like they just zoomed through it, which was particularly jarring since they took such care with their other scenes together. What was with that nosebleed?

Loved. It. Aside from the comments above, the costumes are amazing–not just historically accurate (no harlots running around with flowing hair, yay!), but also true to the characters. Even though Emma, Harriet, Jane Fairfax and Mrs. Elton are women of a similar age and social bracket (in that they all socialize together) their costumes are not in the least interchangeable–they each have unique looks. The soundtrack was not at all what I expected, but I thought worked very well. And the supporting characters are amazing–Bill Nighy as Emma’s father and the actress who played the odious Mrs. Elton were perfect. My favorite scene in the movie was when Mr. Elton brings his new wife to tea at Emma’s house. I would seriously pay for a ticket to Emma II consisting entirely of Emma and Mrs. Elton going head-to-head while Bill Nighy reacts in the background.

If you like Emma you should check out the series with Romola Garai! I personally have never read Emma but my friend loves it and has watched the series multiple times(I’ve seen it too and enjoyed it very much).

Add Your Comment

Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <q cite=""> <s> <strike>

Your Name: *

Your Email: (will never be shared) *

Your Website:

Notify me of follow-up comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

↑ Back to Top

WordPress.org
Documentation
Learn WordPress

‘Gasoline Rainbow’: An Instant-Classic Film Just for Gen Alpha

EASY RIDERS

The gorgeous, free-wheeling “Gasoline Rainbow” blurs the lines between fiction and reality.

Emma Stefansky

There are many moments in Gasoline Rainbow , the teen road trip drama directed by Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross, that defy classification into either fiction or reality. It’s shot as if an unseen member of the friend group at the core of the film is holding a camera at all times, swinging it around inside a cramped van, jerking it from side to side as they run down empty highways and flat fields. Following today’s teens’ first steps into the wide world of adulthood, Gasoline Rainbow is a melancholy, meandering road movie for a generation on the precipice.

The film is led by a group of five first-time actors, three boys and two girls, playing high-school seniors about to graduate from the world they knew and leave their homes for higher education. Having grown up in a small town in the middle of the Oregon flatlands, they’ve never seen the Pacific coast, so they pile into their friend’s van and set off down the road. Most of the movie is just listening to them talk about anything and everything. Their conversations range from music on the radio to abusive home situations to global warming with no beginning, no end, and no logical through lines, as if these really are just kids shooting the shit with their pals.

One of the Ross brothers’ previous films, the “documentary” Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets , chronicled the last big night of a closing bar—but since they couldn’t film inside the actual bar itself, they dressed up a different location and filmed with a cast, blurring the line between fiction and realism. That’s the effect they achieve in Gasoline Rainbow , which is most definitely fiction, but whose performances are so rambling and naturalistic that it’s difficult to tell where script ends and improv begins. During the quieter parts, voiceovers take over, taken from interviews with each of the actors about their hopes and fears for the future, and what they’ve learned from their past and their complicated home lives.

The cast of Gasoline Rainbow .

There’s a plot, but only just. The kids’ mission, after hearing about it from a local stranger, is to make it to a big beach party “at the end of the world,” one last wild night as kids before their lives forever change. No setback—stolen tires, fights, lack of money, no place to sleep at night—is too major to deflect them from their goal, as if they still live in that charmed era of childhood where everything tends to work out if you just keep going. Still, the end of the world, as a concept, is at the forefront of all of their minds: Generation Alpha is more conscious even than Gen Z that they’re inheriting a world on the brink of some international or environmental catastrophe. “Things won’t ever go our way,” one of them murmurs in a voiceover. “Global warming is fucking real!” another shouts.

The film has the same winding, wandering quality as some of the most classic road movies— Easy Rider ; My Own Private Idaho ; Paris, Texas . Like any quest narrative, the kids are driven by their own goals and by the side characters they run into along the way. They party with a group of teens in the desert, they ride the rails with a homeless duo, they take a boat ride through the channels of Seattle. In one of the best sections, the kids spend the night at the home of a metalhead who serves them breakfast the next morning while playing The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack. The almost total lack of narrative conflict could seem frustrating, but that’s part of it all, a world crafted from youthful adventure rather than the stress of adulthood. For now, for one last ride, as long as they’re together everything will turn out all right. After that, who knows?

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here .

READ THIS LIST

Cast & crew

Ryan's World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure

Ryan is back for his most epic adventure yet. When his twin sisters, Emma and Kate, get sucked into a mystical comic book, Ryan has no choice but to rise up as the great big brother he is an... Read all Ryan is back for his most epic adventure yet. When his twin sisters, Emma and Kate, get sucked into a mystical comic book, Ryan has no choice but to rise up as the great big brother he is and jump in after them. Adventures, battles, and hilarious debacles ensue, as Ryan and his f... Read all Ryan is back for his most epic adventure yet. When his twin sisters, Emma and Kate, get sucked into a mystical comic book, Ryan has no choice but to rise up as the great big brother he is and jump in after them. Adventures, battles, and hilarious debacles ensue, as Ryan and his friends navigate the Titan Universe and bring everyone back home safely before his parents ... Read all

Albie Hecht
Rose Frankel
1 nomination

Ryan Kaji, Dan Rhodes, and Evangeline Lomelino in Ryan's World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure (2024)

Delivery Guy

Magician Dan Rhodes
Combo Panda …

Dark Titan …
Ryan's World Fan
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

User reviews

August 16, 2024 (United States)
United States
Pocket.watch
Sunlight Entertainment
Vertigo Entertainment
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 23 minutes

More to explore

‘Mother of the Bride’ Review: Lackluster Rom-Com or Money Laundering Scheme?

Image for review of Mother of the Bride (2024)

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS

Mother of the Bride could have at least tried to make an effort. I know Netflix needed a branded movie title for America’s Mother’s Day, but this is Hallmark Movie Lite. I’m convinced that these throwaway movies that happen to be filmed in exotic places (Thailand was the destination here) are part of a money laundering scheme. Brooke Shields, Benjamin Bratt, and Miranda Cosgrove get a breezy acting gig in humid weather while the executives conduct forensic accounting.

As the title suggests, the story follows the mother of a soon-to-be bride. Emma (Cosgrove) is going to marry RJ (Sean Teale), but she’s worried about her overbearing, controlling mother, Lana (Shields). While at their beautiful wedding destination, Emma soon learns that her mother has a romantic past with RJ’s father, Will (Bratt). Yeah, you already know where the story is going here.

Expect Lana to be dismayed by the presence of Will as the wedding holiday soon turns into presumed chaos, which really means micro-flirting to the obvious outcome. It’s a story where a mother, with apparent self-centeredness, competes with her daughter in the sexual marketplace at their wedding. The story, by default, is a selfish one but is glammed up as a friendly, light narrative.

And I’m all for stories about selfish parenting, but it at least needs to be a tiny bit interesting. Mother of the Bride feels like the entire production team and cast are on holiday, like one of those knock-off Netflix Adam Sandler movies . I’m all for mindless fun, but the fact this movie is produced by professionals is incomprehensible. There’s no substance, chemistry, or spark at all. I half expected to see one of the camera crew slopping on sunscreen between shots.

Did I care if Lana and Will ended up together? Did I care if Emma and RJ married? And did I care if the mother and daughter had issues due to this unwarranted competition for the spotlight? Absolutely not.

And just like someone argued on my TikTok :

“Sometimes a movie is just something to relax with and not spend brainpower on. I don’t watch The Meg 2 and expect a gripping storyline; I watch it to see a big shark go chomp.”

I agree. I watched The Meg to watch a “big shark go chomp,” just like I watched Mother of the Bride to relax and care about a relationship. But it still needs to be a movie, not the equivalent of a college film project.

Many agree with me, which is why the audience and critics’ scores on Rotten Tomatoes are insanely low.

Mother of the Bride Rotten Tomatoes Score on 10th May 2024 (Credit – RT)

As Natalia Winkelman said in her review for the New York Times:

“The best screwball gag this movie can muster is a pickleball shot to the groin.”

Which is true — the fact that Mother of the Bride nearly had a saving grace by pummelling a man in the balls is every reason to stay away from this movie.

Mother of the Bride Ending Explained

According to Google’s “helpful” search results, people really care about the ending of Mother of the Bride , so I’ll break it down quickly.

Yes, Lana and Will end up together after their children, Emma and RJ, tie the knot. Obviously, there are complications because Lana believes that Will has a woman on the side, but it turns out that she is his personal assistant. Phew.

Anyway, before all this, there was an extra drama as Emma was trying to connect her wedding to her career opportunities, which is obviously selfish (like her mother). But Emma agrees with her mother by the end of the movie that weddings are meant to be about family. It’s actually MIND-BLOWING that this was wrong. Weddings are about the couple getting married. It should be about them. It doesn’t surprise me that they’ve got the message wrong, especially when, thematically, it focuses on self-centered people.

Is it a good ending? Who cares, really? What makes it more laughable is that when the credits roll, it shows all the cast having a good time, dancing and basking in the evening humidity, convincing myself even more that this is a money laundering scheme.

RELATED: Mother of the Bride Filming Locations

Article by Daniel Hart

Daniel is the co-founder of Ready Steady Cut and has served as Editor-in-Chief since 2017. Since then, Dan has been at the top of his game by ensuring that we only produce and upload content of exceptional quality and that we’re up to date with the latest additions to the streaming and entertainment world.

Heartstopper Season 2 Episode 8 Recap and Ending Explained

Amazon The Legend Of Vox Machina season 1, episode 6 - Spark Of Rebellion

The Legend Of Vox Machina season 1, episode 6 recap – “Spark Of Rebellion”

This website cannot be displayed as your browser is extremely out of date.

Please update your browser to one of the following: Chrome , Firefox , Edge

COMMENTS

Emma. movie review & film summary (2020)
Emma may live alone on a giant estate with her father (), but her world is very crowded.She has "taken on" Harriet (), an orphaned girl of unknown parentage, boarding at a local girls' school.Harriet has a crush on Mr. Martin, a humble widowed farmer (Connor Swindells), and based on Harriet and Mr. Martin's interactions, her feelings for him are reciprocated.
EMMA.
86% 259 Reviews Tomatometer 72% 1,000+ Verified Ratings Audience Score Beautiful, smart and wealthy, Emma Woodhouse navigates her way through misguided matches, romantic missteps and the ...
Emma. (2020)
Emma.: Directed by Autumn de Wilde. With Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Josh O'Connor, Callum Turner. In 1800s England, a well meaning but selfish young woman meddles in the love lives of her friends.
'Emma' Strikes the Perfect Balance of Modern and Authentic
Amy Heckerling's glorious 1995 Clueless, featuring Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd as modern-day Emma-and-Knightley stand-ins, may be the most well-loved reading. This Emma— or Emma ...
'Emma' Review: Back on the Manor, but Still Clueless
Together, they deepen the feelings that swirl around a woman who with a sharp tongue and a vast imagination invents her world amusingly, foolishly, enduringly. Emma. Rated PG for discreet nudity ...
Emma review
Emma review - sweetness, spite and bared bottoms. ... Sometimes the look of the movie is a bit bland, and the "Gypsies" who at one stage attack Miss Smith are kept coyly off-camera.
'Emma': Film Review
Movies; Movie Reviews 'Emma': Film Review. Anya Taylor-Joy ('The Witch') leaves horror behind as the busybody heroine in 'Emma,' the latest adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, also starring ...
'Emma': Film Review
Feb 3, 2020 9:00am PT. 'Emma.': Film Review. Autumn de Wilde offers a handsome, clever, faithfully unambitious take on the Jane Austen classic. By Andrew Barker. Courtesy of Box Hill Films ...
Emma Review: Anya Taylor-Joy Is Superb In Excellent Jane Austen
In 1995, Amy Heckerling wrote and directed what is arguably the perfect adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma.Clueless is a modernization, set in mid-'90s Beverly Hills, and most of the character ...
Emma.
Emma. - Metacritic. Summary Handsome, clever, and rich, Emma Woodhouse is a restless queen bee without rivals in her sleepy little town. In this glittering satire of social class and the pain of growing up, Emma must adventure through misguided matches and romantic missteps to find the love that has been there all along. Comedy.
Emma review
Emma review - Austen's sweet satire gets a multiplex makeover. Autumn de Wilde's adaptation ramps up the comedy, but Anya Taylor-Joy remains wonderfully edgy as Jane Austen's meddling ...
'Emma' Review: An Austen Adaptation Tailored for Our Moment
Emma wants Harriet to step up to Mr. Elton (a hilarious Josh O'Connor), a vicar who — much to Emma's horror — lusts only for her. His revenge match with a controlling force of nature that ...
Emma. (2020)
Based on a timeless novel Emma by Jane Austen, this latest movie adaptation of her book is a beautiful, gorgeous and entertaining re-make that should easily please Austen fans old and new as it looks phenomenal. Its cast, led by the terrific and wonderful Anya Taylor-Joy, are/is utterly splendid.
Emma review: Comedy of manners is dazzling and witty but doesn't ...
Emma, in theaters now, gets one thing straight immediately: If you can relate to its heroine, you're living a better life than most.Director Autumn de Wilde lays out her cards by emblazoning the ...
Emma (2020) Movie Review
Emma. Review: Jane Austen Gets An Exquisite & Hysterical Adaptation. It is a truth universally acknowledged that every few years, Hollywood will produce a new adaptation of one of Jane Austen's classic novels. This year comes Emma., the feature-length film debut of director Autumn de Wilde that adapts Austen's comedy about romance and marriage ...
Emma Movie Review
movie review Feb. 20, 2020. Not Quite Revisionist, Not Quite Faithful, Emma. Is an Eventual Delight. By Alison Willmore, a Vulture film critic. Anya Taylor-Joy. Photo: Focus Features. The ...
Emma. Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 28 ): Kids say ( 19 ): Gorgeous details combined with a funnier-than-expected screenplay and a wonderful ensemble make this one of the best Jane Austen adaptations in many years. Director Autumn de Wilde and screenwriter Eleanor Catton have infused Emma. with heart, humor, and a positive gloss on the female ...
Emma Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 5 ): Kids say ( 8 ): This romantic movie is worthy, warmhearted family entertainment. As Emma, Paltrow is stunning -- funny and charming, but brave enough to give full weight to her character's occasional smallness and snobbery. Toni Collette, Alan Cumming, and Sophie Thompson ( as jabbering spinster Miss Bate) all ...
Every Emma Movie Adaptation Ranked From Worst To Best (Including Clueless)
Gwyneth Paltrow's Emma (1996) is visually stunning but suffers from lukewarm chemistry and a staid portrayal of Mr. Knightley. Clueless (1995) remains the best and most creative modern adaptation of Austen's Emma, updating the story for a new generation. Jane Austen's classic novel Emma has been adapted into multiple movies, some greater than ...
Movie Review: Emma (2020)
by Eleanor Catton (screenplay), Jane Austen (novel) B+. Not a Book. Let's get this out of the way - Clueless remains the best film adaptation of Emma, the novel by Jane Austen, to date, in terms of capturing the essence of the novel's title character. Having said that, the current (2020) version offers sumptuous scenery, costuming, and ...
'Emma' movie review: A perfect adaptation of another ...
Emma Woodhouse takes young girls under her wing and finds them the perfect partner, despite being unmarried herself. She is dedicated to staying by her father's side as he grows old, and that ...
Emma. movie review: this queen bee has a bitter sting
Emma. movie review: this queen bee has a bitter sting. MaryAnn's quick take: A sly, penetrating zing and a frisson of Insta-influencer horror — of the oppression of performative perfection against a marzipan backdrop — renders Austen's fluff and nonsense deadly serious.
'Gasoline Rainbow' Review: A Road Movie for the Next Generation
During the quieter parts, voiceovers take over, taken from interviews with each of the actors about their hopes and fears for the future, and what they've learned from their past and their ...
Mother of the Bride Review: Gorgeous Product Placement
Lana's husband died when Emma was eight. Will's wife left him when RJ was two. Mother of the Bride deserves credit for putting two age-appropriate actors together as the movie's main love ...
Ryan's World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure (2024)
Ryan's World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure: Directed by Albie Hecht. With Albie Hecht, Emma Kaji, Kate Kaji, Loann Kaji. Ryan is back for his most epic adventure yet. When his twin sisters, Emma and Kate, get sucked into a mystical comic book, Ryan has no choice but to rise up as the great big brother he is and jump in after them.
Mother of the Bride Review and Ending Explained
1. Summary. Mother of the Bride is clearly a distraction for something else. It's absolutely mindless. Mother of the Bride could have at least tried to make an effort. I know Netflix needed a branded movie title for America's Mother's Day, but this is Hallmark Movie Lite. I'm convinced that these throwaway movies that happen to be ...

Movie Reviews

Sheila O'Malley

Now playing

The Fall Guy

The Idea of You

The Roundup: Punishment

Sweet Dreams

Challengers

We Grown Now

Emma. (2020)

Writer (based on the novel by)

Cinematographer

Latest blog posts

A Preview of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival

Driven By Love and Necessity: An Interview With Lily Gladstone

I’ve Never Seen Anything Like It Before: Roger Corman (1926-2024)

RogerEbert.com Announces Assistant Editor, Weekly Critic, and Social Media Manager

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Email not verified

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Movies / TV

Where to Watch

What to Know

Critics Reviews

Movie Clips

A Gorgeous New Emma Adaptation Strikes Just the Right Balance of Modern and Authentic

More Must-Reads From TIME

‘Emma’ Review: Back on the Manor, but Still Clueless

Explore More in TV and Movies

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

site categories

Caryn James

Related Stories

Full credits

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

‘Emma.’: Film Review

Andrew Barker

Popular on Variety

Reviewed at Rodeo Screening Room, Beverly Hills, Jan. 30, 2020. MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 129 MIN.

More From Our Brands

Emma Review: Anya Taylor-Joy Is Superb In Excellent Jane Austen Adaptation

Emma is not only successfully laugh-out-loud funny, but earnestly emotionally.

Anya Taylor-Joy continues to prove herself as an excellent young talent.

Emma is as beautiful as it is entertaining.

Most Popular

Emma review – Austen's sweet satire gets a multiplex makeover

Most viewed

‘Emma’ Review: An Austen Adaptation Tailored for Our Moment

Peter Travers

Editor’s picks

Kelly Clarkson, Whoopi Goldberg Bond Over Health Journeys and Family Dynamics

Ali Wong Opened Up About Her Divorce, Dating Bill Hader at Sold Out Comedy Show

George Clooney to Make Broadway Debut in ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’

Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie Will Launch New Reality Series 20 Years After 'The Simple Life'

'Black Twitter' Shows How the Platform Reshaped Our Culture. Where Have Those Voices Gone Today?

Most Popular

Verify it's you

Emma review: Comedy of manners is dazzling and witty but doesn't dig deep

New Movies Coming in 2023 From Marvel, Netflix, DC and More

Not Quite Revisionist, Not Quite Faithful, Emma. Is an Eventual Delight

Most Viewed Stories

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

Sign In To Continue Reading

Or browse by category:

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Common Sense Selections for Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids