Emma. (2020) was directed by Autumn de Wilde. Jane Austen's novel was published in 1815. Two hundred years later, the novel still is wonderful. (OK--not Jane Austen's best novel, but still wonderful.)
Emma can be successfully transformed into a movie, but this isn't that movie. Director de Wilde is experienced, but primarily in TV. Anya Taylor-Joy, who portrays Emma Woodhouse, is red hot right now, as the star of The Queen's Gambit. Playing Emma will prove to Hollywood that she has a broad range of talents. Well, that was the game plan, but it didn't work. She's definitely a 21st Century woman, dressed up in 19th Century costumes.
In the novel Mr. Knightley is much older than Emma. Johnny Flynn who portrays Mr. Knightley in the movie is, indeed, much older than Emma, but he looks like her contemporary. I'm sure that he's glad that he's so youthful looking, but it doesn't work in this movie.
Bill Nighy, who plays Mr. Woodhouse is an outstanding actor, but he too is miscast. In the novel, Mr. Woodhouse worries about everything, not just drafts as portrayed in the movie. Nighy is calm and steady--he doesn't adapt to the role of the dithering Mr. Woodhouse.
An actor who deserves praise is Amber Anderson, who portrays Jane Fairfax In the film. Anderson performs the third movement from Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 12 on the fortepiano and she's not dubbed! This is even more of an astounding accomplishment, because Anderson normally plays the piano. She had to relearn the piece on the pianoforte, which is a similar--but not identical--instrument.
The soundtrack of the movie is unusual. Director de Wilde has chosen some wonderful folk music performed by outstanding folk artists. However, the songs on the soundtrack were played with no apparent relationship to what we were seeing on the screen. It's almost as if de Wilde reached into a bag of songs and threw whatever she happened to find into the soundtrack in a random fashion. Very strange.
If you are a Jane Austen superfan, you may want to see this version of Emma for the sake of completeness. Otherwise, I would avoid it. Emma. has a weak IMDb rating of 6.7, but I didn't think it was that good, and rated it 5.
