Emma
“Emma”
is a 2020 British comedy-drama film directed by Autumn de Wilde, from a
screenplay by Eleanor Catton and is based on Jane Austen's 1815 novel of the
same name. Its story follows specifically “Emma Woodhouse”, a young beautiful
and highly vain woman who lives in a large mansion on the Hartford estate of
her elderly father in the village of Highbury. “Emma” has absolutely no wish to
marry but enjoys pairing her family and friends together so her daily
preoccupation is to find new ways to interfere and delve in the love lives of
her many friendships, loves and heartbreaks with a mix of drama, dramatic humor
and romantic sweetness in this latest adaptation of the Jane Austen’s book. It
stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Josh O'Connor, Callum Turner, Mia Goth,
Miranda Hart, and Bill Nighy.
REVIEW: Personally
I consider myself a bit of an anglophile when it comes to all things British,
especially in regards to the theater, movies, plays and culture. So generally speaking
I am usually eager to see these type of throwback films where the men collectively
project chivalrous masculinity with their innate traits of honor, courage,
grace nobility and loyalty, while the women equally exude their feminine
ladylikeness with innate traits of gentleness, empathy, humility, sensitivity,
sensuality and radiance. And with a running time of 2:02 minutes “Emma” is luxuriously
steep in these many human qualities.
But
inspite of it being almost flawless with its textured execution of these many esthetic
human qualities, I found myself spending far too much time waiting for these performances
to elevate the written material itself; to make it evolve into a much needed display
of emotional nuance that explained and explored what these interwoven characters
really meant to one another. Instead, while “Emma” had the occasional compelling
emotional moment, it felt overall like an exercise of untapped wasted acting potential.
Only the lead character “Emma” herself came across as being sumptuously
endearing and captivating to know, experience, to ever care about. Director Autumn
de Wilde and her many actors appropriately delivered the humor, wit and drama
when the material required it, but in the end their heart felt efforts too
often only projected on the surface in well-dressed 1800's attire just layerless
stick figures characters with lovely British accents devoid of any meaningful human depth and
emotional connectedness.
“Emma”
looked fresh, looked uniquely reimagined and sounded virtuously charming, ultimately
it's a fresh and pretty coat of colorful cinematic paint on a wasted good story.
2.00
Stars
