OVP: Emma (2020)

Film: Emma (2020)
Stars: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Mia Goth, Miranda Hart, Bill Nighy, Josh O'Connor, Callum Turner
Director: Autumn de Wilde
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Costume Design, Makeup & Hairstyling)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

We're going to conclude our look at 2020 movies with Emma.  We're going to be moving into a different theme for the entire month of October on Thursday (more to come then!), though going forward I'll be publishing the 2020 reviews as soon as I have them done in case you (like me) are benefiting from discussion of under-discussed or "should I see it" titles from this year as you try to make a somewhat reputable list of films from this year for your end-of-season lists (it's never too early to start planning lists).  We're going to end the 2020 films with a modest hit from earlier this spring, one that hit theaters before Covid quarantine's commenced in many places in the USA and Europe: Emma.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is an adaptation of one of Jane Austen's most beloved works, that has been filmed many times (including both the Gwyneth Paltrow version in 1996 and the loosely-inpsired Clueless a year earlier), so the plot is probably known to most of you, but I'll give a quick refresher.  Emma Woodhouse (Taylor-Joy) is a wealthy & beautiful young woman whose governess has recently taken a husband.  Emma fancies herself now a matchmaker, and is intent on doing so for her new friend Harriet (Goth).  Harriet has her sites set on a farmer, but Emma thinks him beneath her new friend (even though we know little of her parentage, and she is not wealthy), and wants to set him up with the clergyman Mr. Elton (O'Connor), a sniveling man.  Emma has a flirtation with George Knightley (Flynn), but insists she must stay with her hypochondriac father (Nighy).  As the film continues, much shenanigans happen, including the introduction of a brief love interest for Emma in Frank Churchill (Turner), but in the end Harriet ends up with her farmer, and Emma with George...arguably the happiest of endings for any Austen novel (literally no one is the ill for it, even Mr. Elton who has found his perfect, snobby match).

If you were a filmgoer in the mid-90's you know the Austen phenomenon that happened with not just Emma and Clueless, but also the BBC Pride & Prejudice (yes, the one with Colin Firth) and the Oscar-winning Sense & Sensibility.  It's weird to compare these films to the Nolan Batman movies, but they were such a well-constructed look at the heroines of this era that it feels weird revisiting them, knowing we already have perfectly-good "definitive" versions.  However, Emma was the one I hadn't seen in the longest time, and as a result I was charmed by this movie.

Taylor-Joy isn't quite Paltrow, but she's a delight as Emma, and perhaps finds a naughtier wickedness in her that Paltrow didn't quite capture initially.  The supporting cast is all delightful.  Johnny Flynn, a musician (he even wrote an original song for the film), is great & haughty as George, and actor-of-the-moment O'Connor sinks his teeth into Mr. Elton.  I have no complaints about the cast, and particularly jolly good to one of my favorite character actors, Miranda Hart, who finds the ridiculous in Miss Bates, as well as the tragedy of such a character (she is poor, and without any venues to gain back a fortune, and thus must live on the charity of others-she was meant as a cautionary tale to Emma, as well as perhaps a window into how Austen viewed herself).

I'm torn here in a similar way to how I was with And Then We Danced between a four & a five star ranking, longing to give a five because I haven't yet this year, but it's not quite there.  This is jolly good fun, featherweight, and that can occasionally warrant a five-star, but it's not quite as sparkly as it could be, and I think I'm a bit overcome by its charms so as to ignore its faults.  But this is worth the rental, and I might change my mind come year's end.