{"id":6060,"date":"2024-10-14T16:41:08","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T20:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6060"},"modified":"2024-10-15T00:06:49","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T04:06:49","slug":"emma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/14\/emma\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Emma.<\/strong> (2020)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Focus\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 124 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (brief partial nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Autumn de Wilde\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Eleanor Catton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Schweitzer and Isobel Waller-Bridge\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematographer: Christopher Blauvelt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 28, 2020 (Philadelphia, PA)\/March 6, 2020 (US, wide)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Bill Nighy, Mia Goth, Myra McFadyen, Josh O\u2019Connor, Callum Turner, Rupert Graves, Gemma Whelan, Amber Anderson, Miranda Hart, Connor Swindells, Tanya Reynolds, Suzy Bloom, Vanessa M. Owen, Isis Hainsworth.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $10.1M (US)\/$27.4M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0To begin with, this latest adaptation of Jane Austen\u2019s novel is entitled Emma.<\/strong> with a period (or, as the Brits call it, a full stop) at the end. The reason for it is simple. In an interview, director Autumn de Wilde explained it\u2019s there because \u201cit\u2019s a period film\u201d. Gotta love those easy answers, no?<\/p>\n

\u00a0There was a period in the mid-90s when Emma was all the rage. It served as the inspiration for the now-iconic 1995 teen comedy Clueless starring Alicia Silverstone. The following year, it was faithfully adapted as both a theatrical film starring Gwyneth Paltrow and a TV movie starring Kate Beckinsale. After a long break, the Austen classic gets another shot at the big screen with Emma.<\/strong> starring Anya Taylor-Joy (Glass) in the title role. I have to say, I like it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although I\u2019m sure anybody interested in seeing Emma.<\/strong> is already intimately familiar with the original source, I\u2019m going to go ahead and provide a refresher course. The heroine is 21YO Emma Woodhouse, a na\u00efve rich girl who sees herself as a matchmaker. She meddles in everybody\u2019s love life without a single thought to the consequences her actions may have. She lives on a huge estate with her widowed father Mr. Woodhouse (Nighy, Love Actually) in the pastoral village of Highbury. She\u2019s smart, spoiled, headstrong, well-meaning and filled with hubris.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The trouble begins when Emma tries to find a suitable match for new friend Harriet (Goth, A Cure for Wellness), an orphaned girl from a nearby boarding school. She talks her out of accepting a marriage proposal from a local farmer, Robert Martin (Swindells, Sex Education), in favor of the town vicar Mr. Elton (O\u2019Connor, God\u2019s Own Country), a smarmy sort with no interest in Harriet. He wants to be with Emma who rejects him outright. Of course, that isn\u2019t the end of it. There\u2019s more, much more, but I don\u2019t feel a pressing need to go into it. Let\u2019s instead talk about Emma\u2019s love life. She\u2019s not interested in getting married any time soon (if ever). She is, however, intrigued by Frank Churchill (Turner, Green Room), the son-in-law of her friend Mrs. Weston (Whelan, Game of Thrones) who never seems to be able to get away from his supposedly ailing aunt long enough to visit home. When he finally shows up, it doesn\u2019t go the way she tries to orchestrate.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Then there\u2019s Mr. Knightley (Flynn, Beast), Emma\u2019s childhood friend who still makes regular visits to her and her dad. He\u2019s known her too long for her to get over on him. He sees right through her and isn\u2019t afraid to call her out on anything. They constantly deny their feelings for each other. It must be love.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I must admit I had a little trouble keeping track of all the characters and relationships at first, but I managed to get caught up before the point of no return. I\u2019m glad because Emma.<\/strong> is a thoroughly charming and funny little movie. It benefits greatly from a bold performance by Joy who never shies away from displaying her character\u2019s less appealing attributes like her selfishness. She doesn\u2019t try to be likable or adorable. Emma is the kind of shallow-seeming girl that most people don\u2019t take seriously. For her part, Emma doesn\u2019t know as much about love as she thinks. She\u2019s especially clueless (joke totally intended!) when it comes to herself. She has no sense of self-awareness. I don\u2019t know a lot about Austen\u2019s body of literary work but Emma is a fascinating romantic heroine.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The rest of the cast is nothing short of magnificent from Nighy\u2019s hypochondriac dad to O\u2019Connor\u2019s smug Mr. Elton brought down a few pegs by the wife from hell (Reynolds, Sex Education). Goth is also great as the inexperienced girl relying on a best friend who may only have her own interests at heart. The cast also includes Amber Anderson (We Are the Freaks) as Jane Fairfax, the newcomer to Highbury who steals the spotlight from Emma and Miranda Hart (Spy) as her aunt who\u2019s been boring Emma for years with letters from her niece.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The costumes, scenery and production design are positively gorgeous. I\u2019d even go so far as to say that it\u2019s collectively a work of art. De Wilde transports the viewer to a beautiful time and place- early 19th<\/sup> century England- for a story that celebrates the power of womanhood and love, showing that the two things can co-exist. Emma.<\/strong> is just a nice movie, one that mothers can see with their preteen daughters by way of introducing them to the wonder of classic literature.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emma. (2020)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Focus\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 124 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (brief partial nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Autumn de Wilde\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Eleanor Catton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Schweitzer and Isobel Waller-Bridge\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematographer: Christopher Blauvelt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 28, 2020 (Philadelphia, PA)\/March 6, 2020 (US, wide)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Bill Nighy, Mia Goth, Myra McFadyen, Josh O\u2019Connor, Callum Turner, Rupert Graves, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Emma-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6060"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6219,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6060\/revisions\/6219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}