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Emma and the will to meddle

Robyn Sassen
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THE very picture of tea-time conviviality: Miss Bates (Miranda Hart), Harriet Smith (Mia Goth) and Emma Woodhouse (Anya Taylor-Joy). Photograph courtesy http://www.irishnews.com

THE THRILL OF taking a well-heeled classic for a spin on the contemporary circuit can be astonishing, if you are able to get under the skin of what makes it tick. And what has made it tick for hundreds of years. This is exactly what happens in Autumn de Wilde’s interpretation of Jane Austen’s Emma, a film which was on local circuit in 2020, and can now be seen on Netflix.

Able to contain and express the humour in this beautiful work which is as much about manners and values as it is about uproariously teasing those miens open, Emma is a period piece with all the right laces and curls in all the right places. It touches, however, our humanity through its almost slapstick humour which takes each character, be it Bill Nighy’s interpretation of Mr Woodhouse, Miranda Hart’s Miss Bates or Mia Goth’s Harriet Smith, and lends an earnestness to the fabric of the individual, which enhances the hilarity stakes.

Anya Taylor-Joy, who you may remember from The Queen’s Gambit is a perfect Emma Woodhouse. She’s sarky and beautiful, intelligent and manipulative but she has a hefty dash of the naïve tossed into her emotional mix, which endears you to her, instantly. She’s an ideal 21-year-old who believes she has the world as her oyster, and can laugh at anyone, until she can’t, that is.

But Taylor-Joy’s sparkle, while polished to a sheen, is stolen in many respects by Goth’s Harriet and above all, Hart’s Miss Bates. These two central characters to the novel, which serve to throw the spotlight onto Emma herself, are beautifully handled with performance and directorial wisdom. You fall completely in love with the crude vulnerability and will to be a part of the in-scene, of Miss Bates and while you know she’s an irritating sod in her desire to constantly do the right thing, she is real and human and completely delightfully performed. Nighy, too, is a fabulous Mr Woodhouse, all curmudgeonly and lovable, yet irritatingly vulnerable at the same time.

Other than the role of Emma, the characters which surround her are essentially cameos. And yet they are developed and performed with such a mature sense of well-roundedness that they hold the moments like shiny gems that you will not readily forget.

And then, there is the set. Photographed, designed and worked in a uniform pastel celebration of 19th century British existence, the work is visually completely seductive. With a funny little nod in the direction of Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, and some impeccable choreography, you will not be able to take your eyes from the piece. You want to eat each still because of the way in which colour and light, the portrayal of landscape and architecture, are used to mesh with the polished sense of social behaviour and matrimonial rituals central to the film itself.  

In short, this is easily one of the best contemporary period dramas that has graced the film industry for a while. It takes the thread of a great classic and allows you to remember why Austen is so utterly magnificent.

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