Victorians may have been a bunch of pervs, but they did it with panache. Kind of like British people who can say all sorts of sh*tty things in their awesome accents and get away with it. Mind you I’m not judging the Victorians, I actually believe that it is very dangerous to judge people outside of the historical context of their times, though it seems to be terribly popular these days, when suddenly everyone developed an overactive morality and unleashed it on their predecessors with alarming gusto. Oh how those who live in glass accommodations love to throw things. Anyway, this apparent digression is to say that a movie about a young woman being essentially groomed through moral lessons by a man 16 years her senior into marriage is still perceived as romantic in this day and age somehow, so #MeToo to you too. And yes, we are talking about Emma, the latest in a series of profoundly unnecessary and inferior remakes the powers that be unleashed in 2020. Emma is handsome, clever and comes from money. That much we know and the movie poster tells us. She’s also a relentless meddler who inexplicably (or maybe explicably because we are told she is clever) thinks she knows something about life, love or marriage and so she meddles in lives of those around her and they endure, because (presumably) she is so charming. And the thing is, yes, Emma is meant to be charming, that’s kind of the entire thing…otherwise she’d be a tedious brat. The 1996 version got it perfectly and didn’t even need a British actress to do it. The 2020 version went with Anya Taylor Joy and what a joyless selection that turned out to be. Sure, her cut glass accent is perfect and her youth is suitable, but her resting bitch face (and I’m sorry to talk that way about a young person, but there’s just no other way to explain it) is just so freaking offputing that at best she looks like the meanest girl in high school. That isn’t just the case with Emma, that’s literally her in every movie. Just a sort of mean glare and a snobbish demeanor. The rest of the cast is a veritable who’s who of British young and weird looking. Now you’re thinking…this review is too much about superficial attractiveness. It isn’t meant to be, it’s just an observation. The cast are goofy (in a very specifically British way) looking young actors plus a peculiarly blonde Johnny Flynn’s Mr. Knightley, who just looks like a musician which he is, and shows his butt in the movie for no apparent reason whatsoever. I can’t speak to his and Emma’s chemistry, that’s something normally difficult for me to discern. Suffice it to say, it might be there, because Emma sneers less when he’s around…though pouts more. There’s also Bill Nighy bemusedly walking around as his dapper self, apparently just for a paycheck and a perfectly wasted Gemma Whelan as the former governess. The direction is fine, considering, which is to say you got gorgeous scenery and a terrific source material, so it would actually take work to screw it up. Terrific source material meaning Jane Austen’s writing is ever so clever and funny and fun, albeit profoundly vapid since it mainly and almost exclusively obsesses with romantic prospects. Emma, for all her handsome cleverness, is only ever meant to marry Mr. Knightley. Who has apparently known her since when exactly? Ewww? Not nearly as creepy as Victorians who formed obsessions with young girls who didn’t grow up to marry them. Sure. Then again that gave us one of the greatest children’s stories of all time. Anyway… It would all be perfectly well in service of a story had it been charming. Kind of like the things Emma says and does and gets away with on her presupposed charm. But the thing is Emma 2020 lacks the prerequisite charm, glow and ebullience. Taylor Joy acts like…well, like a model she originally was before turning to movies. Cosmetically pretty, looks good in clothes and all the concomitant warmth of a mannequin. And the movie lacks charm too. Especially, strikingly, obvious by comparison to the infinitely superior 1996 version. There is no conceivable reason to remake a movie like Emma, it’s classically set so it doesn’t age. And yet…and yet... The thing is, even Clueless once upon a time understood the source material enough to make it fun. But not this one. Avoid if possible. This Emma Woodhouse is much too wooden for the vivaciousness of Austen’s book.
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