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| Scene from Emma (2020) |
On its surface, Emma. seems like a bit of an unnecessary adaptation. In 2020, who needs another film about women acting mean towards each other, especially if they're rich and spent close to two decades without too many worries? Then again to dismiss this is to ignore the brilliant wit of Jane Austen, who even 200 years after her death has proven the vitality of complicated women in director Autumn de Wilde's take that fits the screwball comedy in with a deeper catharsis in which Emma Woodhouse (Anya Taylor Joy) grows a sympathetic conscience and understands the weight of the world around her. It's a film brimming with personality and gorgeous period-appropriate imagery, and one that proves how timeless Austen's work is at showing class structures between the lines of madcap love stories that are infectious on their own.
A lot of credit should be given to Joy for delivering a great turn as Emma. Because of her privilege, she believes that she can bump her nose into everyone's business. She knows better than just about everyone else and for a while, it feels like that's true. She exists with nothing more than a smile, spouting Austen prose as she deals with her hypochondriac father Mr. Woodhouse (Bill Nighy). She revels in everyone else's affairs in part because she doesn't believe that she's capable of falling in love and marrying. She'd rather play matchmaker to Harriet Smith (Mia Goth), who is a goofy outsider too scared to ask any man for their hand. Even behind the cute, unassuming face lies a growing sense of deceit, that she is prying too far in. At certain points, the elaborate comedy falls flats into the drama that seeks to make Emma seem like a terrible spinster. It's a gift of de Wilde that it happens so slightly that sometimes the pain happens underneath the laughter.
It is an anti-romantic comedy. Emma spends most of the film more observing the joy of others than seeking a man. Mr. Woodhouse is so helpless that he spends more time asking Emma to stay and live with her poor widowed dad than Emma does courting attention. Anytime that a man hits on her, it always is a diversion to a different relationship. The supporting cast grows full of comical women, all madly in love. They feel like soldiers attacking the fort of Emma, but none can get by her. Her distance from everyone besides Harriet suggests that she is going to end this story the same. At first, it could just be a personal choice, but as time build one has to wonder if it comes in part from her inability to sympathize with others. Even behind her calm demeanor, she grows cruel, and suddenly becomes the moment of silence at a lively party, where it feels like things have turned and everyone judges her.
The drama that follows is compelling stuff, creating a character with such a strong dynamic that it becomes more about a personal struggle to improve one's life than about falling in love. Any dive into the genre is more done as her opening up to others, finding a deeper understanding. Suddenly she can understand the joy that Harriet has when she looks longingly into a man's eyes, wishing to have that fulfillment in her life. It's in the goofy grins that de Wilde holds on, reflecting love at its most pure. The exuberance of passion gives the film a perfect juxtaposition between Emma and the world around her. She resents being in the romantic comedy, and in some ways selfishly wants to go back to a time when her biggest drama was sitting front row at a church, hearing a sermon from a priest whose robes look to be choking him.
The attention to period detail is exceptional, managing to borrow heavily from the wardrobe of the time. The bright colors dazzle against the countryside cinematography as the jaunty score by David Schweitzer and Isobel Waller-Bridge. Exterior shots find the characters constantly exiting carriages, passing by sheep (both in animals and a group of reappearing women who flock around in red). The world is populated with small nuance, where the architecture towers over the characters, managing to feel regal as hallways feel pure and dining quarters feel claustrophobic as if the drama is about to grow intense. It's a beautiful film and one that captures the bliss that period pieces can bring. Where the characters appear in elegiac prose in public, they become less refined in private, allowing their femininity to take hold and enjoy their own mess of issues. The divides allow for more thoughts on Austen's text to become clear, as de Wilde modernizes in subtle ways. She allows the characters to feel more human and flawed, experiencing plights with consequences that are natural, and all while staying true to the setting of the time.
Emma. is another period piece that does an exceptional job of being first and foremost entertaining. It helps that it has a great turn by Joy, who manages to be vindictive and sympathetic in equal measure, perfectly blending with the tone in a manner that never lets up its jubilance. If nothing else, it's one of the best examples of how Jane Austen's prose continues to resonate two centuries later, informing how audiences perceive women. Rarely have they been allowed to be this complicated, creating something that engrosses even as it repulses. Even then, it's all so much fun and heartwarming that it's hard to not admire de Wilde's craft. It's a beautiful film that goes down smoothly while defying expectations. Emma. clicks with a life that makes one hope for great things from Joy, who has rarely been this upbeat. The film has so much to love that it will likely only grow in affection as time goes on, much like the novel it was based off of.
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