Fashion photographer Autumn de Wilde's Emma. is an admirable work,
finely crafted and meticulously composed. Its production values are
exquisite; each frame is a study, a tableau of near artistic perfection
-- stately interiors of the 19th-century British country estates and the
expansively verdant countrysides surrounding them. It's all just
breathtaking.
De Wilde directs an array of fully realized characters nestled in Jane Austen's mannered story space and led by the luminously
doe-eyed Anya Taylor-Joy as the title character, a young and unattached
woman of means who enjoys playing match-maker but is not particularly
well-suited to the task. Her latest project is the school girl Harriet
(Mia Goth), whose lineage is dubious but whose devotion to Emma is
unquestionable.
Circling
around the two women are suitors with varying degrees of dexterity,
played by Johnny Flynn, Josh O'Connor and Callum Turner. Screenwriter
Ellen Catton's dialogue is as rich and sumptuous as the tea cakes
gracing the parlor tables.
As marvelous as Emma. is in its entirety, I was especially taken by
Miranda Hart's performance as the bounteously dithered Miss Bates, upon
whom Taylor-Joy's Emma directs withering condescension. Of all the
manor folk who populate Austen's beauteously appointed but frequently
unmannered chambers and porticoes, Miss Bates is the gentlest and
utterly without guile. Hart's depiction of this prim bundle of
self-deprecation elevates every scene she's in. I was charmed.
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