Emma
Autumn de Wilde's Emma is the story of an improbably beautiful girl living in a praline castle. She is clever, wealthy, bored and permanently ready for her close-up. The camera does not so much love Anja Taylor-Joy's face as find it forensically fascinating. She is photographed - face on, filling the frame - constantly throughout the film. The first twenty minutes or so is like a flick book of portraits, ravishing shot after ravishing shot. She remains inexhaustibly gorgeous, her face continually placed front and centre for the length of the film. The fourth wall takes a sustained beating and the male gaze is confronted and stared down by de Wilde's subversive camera.
The rest of de Wilde's direction is at arms length. This is a very composed and self consciously pretty film, and the beauty of the set design and costumes is coolly observed as the camera moves slowly and dispassionately over its chocolate box patina. This film is very ordered and very neat, the performances captured under glass. I've rarely seen the sheer boredom of life in the past depicted so well. Emma has nothing to do. Apart from meddling in other people's lives and arguing with her sole intellectual equal, Mr Knightley, she has nothing going on. She wanders about the place. She sits there. She puts up with idiots. She is corseted by convention. Never-the-less, when acting finally does break out it is irresistible, a riot of snot and tears and bleeding noses.
There is a very famous scene in Emma where Emma, bored to distraction and emboldened by the goading of Frank Churchill, openly insults the foolish, clucking Mrs Bates (Miranda Hart). I have never seen a scene of social awkwardness as beautifully played and so quietly devastating. You can feel the air leaving the scene. Hart is amazing here, palpably hit and crumbling because of it, unable to fully process the injustice that has befallen her. Taylor-Joy's face does a hundred different things, suddenly recognising the very real pain she has caused so carelessly, and attempting to square self-justification with her certain knowledge that she has gone too far. She has been cruel and been seen to be cruel. It is the beginning of her wisdom. It is the start of her growth as a human being. And it is brilliantly realised here. And Miranda Hart, from nowhere, is mesmerising.
Mia Goth, and that's actually her real name, is great. Johnny Flynn, whom I'd previously known only from the Detectorists theme tune, is also great. Knightley is a pretty thankless part - he's there to tell Emma that she's an idiot until he works out that he's in love with her. Flynn's Knightley is never condescending or smug, and always just the right side of self-righteous. And when he unravels he does it completely. The pair of them bubble up into shared emotion messily and without dignity. Which is the way it should be.
Bill Nighy is Bill Nighy but in fabulous waistcoats. The servants are regarded as little more than human furniture, which I suspect is accurate to the time period, and both leads get their bums out.
I think I liked it.
The rest of de Wilde's direction is at arms length. This is a very composed and self consciously pretty film, and the beauty of the set design and costumes is coolly observed as the camera moves slowly and dispassionately over its chocolate box patina. This film is very ordered and very neat, the performances captured under glass. I've rarely seen the sheer boredom of life in the past depicted so well. Emma has nothing to do. Apart from meddling in other people's lives and arguing with her sole intellectual equal, Mr Knightley, she has nothing going on. She wanders about the place. She sits there. She puts up with idiots. She is corseted by convention. Never-the-less, when acting finally does break out it is irresistible, a riot of snot and tears and bleeding noses.
There is a very famous scene in Emma where Emma, bored to distraction and emboldened by the goading of Frank Churchill, openly insults the foolish, clucking Mrs Bates (Miranda Hart). I have never seen a scene of social awkwardness as beautifully played and so quietly devastating. You can feel the air leaving the scene. Hart is amazing here, palpably hit and crumbling because of it, unable to fully process the injustice that has befallen her. Taylor-Joy's face does a hundred different things, suddenly recognising the very real pain she has caused so carelessly, and attempting to square self-justification with her certain knowledge that she has gone too far. She has been cruel and been seen to be cruel. It is the beginning of her wisdom. It is the start of her growth as a human being. And it is brilliantly realised here. And Miranda Hart, from nowhere, is mesmerising.
Mia Goth, and that's actually her real name, is great. Johnny Flynn, whom I'd previously known only from the Detectorists theme tune, is also great. Knightley is a pretty thankless part - he's there to tell Emma that she's an idiot until he works out that he's in love with her. Flynn's Knightley is never condescending or smug, and always just the right side of self-righteous. And when he unravels he does it completely. The pair of them bubble up into shared emotion messily and without dignity. Which is the way it should be.
Bill Nighy is Bill Nighy but in fabulous waistcoats. The servants are regarded as little more than human furniture, which I suspect is accurate to the time period, and both leads get their bums out.
I think I liked it.
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