Emma

Emma
August 30, 1996
Miramax
Comedy, Romance, Historical
VHS
C+

While on the surface this may seem like a faithful adaptation of the Austen novel, I find it much less in the spirit than Clueless, not to mention the contemporary Kate Beckinsale TV-movie.  I'm going to have to blame writer-director Douglas McGrath for the main flaws: general miscasting (especially of Harriet), a cutesy device of a sentence being started in one scene ("So then I said....") and then finished in the next ("How delightful!"), and the shafting of the Frank Churchill/ Jane Fairfax subplot.  (Enchanted April's Polly Walker and 25-year-old Ewan McGregor both do their best, but they're given little to work with and are misdirected in most of what they do get.)

That said, there are moments when the film forgets its own unnecessary flourishes and focuses on Austen's still great dialogue and plotting.  Even if the cast isn't quite right, it is an interesting assemblage, including 23-year-old Gwyneth Paltrow in the title role (sufficiently British but too pouty), 31-year-old Alan Cumming as Mr. Elton, and of course Emma Thompson's mother and 34-year-old sister as Mrs. and Miss Bates.  I have to note that Jeremy Northam as Mr. Knightley and Greta Scacchi as Mrs. Weston are both much more interesting and attractive than anyone else in the movie, and I would've actually rather have watched a far from canonical backstory of them being in love ten or fifteen years earlier.