Oh, before smartphones and Instagram, there were influencers… and they could be as shallow, as overconfident, and as pejorative as they are today. This new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma — the feature debuts of photographer and music-video director Autumn de Wilde and Man Booker Prize–winning novelist turned screenwriter Eleanor Catton — brings that sort of modern frisson, of the oppression of performative perfection against a marzipan backdrop, to its retelling of the tale of a very rich young woman who amuses herself by interfering in the romantic lives of those around her. She may be hoping to inspire her friends, but more often than not, she’s a conceited bully trying to mold them in her own image, even if that doesn’t suit them.
The notoriously *ahem* clueless privilege of Emma Woodhouse is delivered with just the tiniest hint of terror in the hands of Anya Taylor-Joy (Playmobil: The Movie, Glass) — an inspired bit of casting on de Wilde’s part — who inevitably brings a shiver of unease with her from the horror movies she has been heretofore known for. (See Marrowbone, The Witch, and Morgan.) Her Emma is a queen bee with more sting than previous depictions of the character have had: Taylor-Joy’s preternaturally large eyes seem to bore straight through those she would dominate.
Such as Emma’s friend Harriet Smith, whose low birth makes the poor, unlineaged girl much more suited, in oh-so class-conscious Regency England, to the handsome farmer, Robert Martin (Connor Swindells), she actually really likes rather than the absolutely unctuous yet more “respectable” vicar, Mr Elton (an unexpected Josh O’Connor: God’s Own Country, Florence Foster Jenkins), to whom Emma is attempting to marry Harriet off. Mia Goth (A Cure for Wellness, Everest), as Harriet, also hails from horror films, and her Harriet isn’t merely timid in the face of Emma but downright petrified, a pale, watery figure who might only be retaining any solidity at all through her devotion to Emma and her desire to please her “better,” who can surely have only Harriet’s best interests at heart, no?
A recurring visual motif of schoolgirls in bloodred cloaks fluttering through Emma’s village of Highbury is a vivid splash of color amongst the soft hues that fill the movie’s palette, and made me think of The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s another hint of the muted horror underlying Emma’s insistence — which is her world’s insistence — on women’s highest achievement being marriage and babymaking. It renders Emma’s infamous moment of outright cruelty, to Miss Bates, the older spinster in Emma’s circle, seem even more brutal: does Emma have no consideration at all for a woman who has failed at the one job she is “supposed” to do? (Miranda Hart [Spy] plays Miss Bates as slightly ridiculous and totally harmless, and perhaps even less worthy of Emma’s disdain than other versions of the character have been.)
There’s real bite, too, in Johnny Flynn’s (Beast, Love Is Thicker Than Water) Mr Knightley, the family friend who acts — though clearly he would prefer not to — as Emma’s conscience, especially in that scene in which he calls Emma out for her behavior toward Miss Bates and Emma finally begins to realize how wrong she is about almost everything. It had never occurred to me before — and maybe this is a function of the extra sharpness of this new adaptation — but how rare it is to see a young woman onscreen learn a life lesson with such a searing onset of painful self-awareness.
For sure, there is much light entertainment to be had here: in Bill Nighy (Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, The Bookshop) being Bill Nighy as Emma’s widower father and in Gemma Whelan (Game of Thrones, Prevenge) and Rupert Graves (Doctor Who, Fast Girls) as the happy newlywed Westons; in the literally, er, cheekiness of a few reminders that these are fleshly human beings, not costume-drama mannequins. But Austen’s wisdom about men and women and life and love takes on a sly, penetrating zing that underscores that the comedy of manners that might seem like fluff and nonsense was — and remains — deadly serious, too. When I say that this new Emma. nails what Austen was saying… well, it really nails it.
Austin did not accept any more than most thinking women that a woman was worthless unless she got married: feminist s didn’t invent that idea and Austin was no feminist.
Cool, cool. Would you like to comment on the film and or my review now?
Thought the review was insightful: I do want to see the movie now. I don’t really think my comment made a lot of sense: I know in the tradition I was raised with women who never married were not considered failures by that fact. In my reading of Emma Miss Bates is a sweet awkward and poor older woman: but not a failure. And I’m pretty sure Austin did not consider her one.
*facepalm*
What Austen considered appropriate for women is almost probably exactly the opposite of what her society considered so, and it might even be that the not-even-disguised subtext of her work is about subverting that.
I am not married and I do not consider myself a failure because of that. But even today, two hundred damn years after Austen was writing, many people — indeed, our entire culture — might consider me one.
Whatever certain outliers like you, me, and Austen might think, the world STILL considers it a woman’s highest and best achievement to marry and have children.
I am Catholic: a serious one. I didn’t know when I was a child if I would get married or not but I grew I grew up admiring all sorts of women who never got married: great Catholic saints who sometimes had far more influence than most of the men of their time. So the idea that women who were unmarried were failures was ruled out for me from the age of 4. My father, a devout Catholic, often spoke with great respect of his unmarried aunts who were school teachers and never married. My parents never treated the subject of marriage as an end game for any of their kids. I think it’s interesting that the tradition I came from would be rejected by many as patriarchal but it rejected so many of the ideas about women which we also reject. Thanks for the interesting review.
We’re drifting further and further from anything relating to the movie or review, but your personal experiences aside, surely you’re aware that for the vast majority of Catholics and followers of Abrahamic religions in general, a successful marriage that produces multiple children has historically been considered the ultimate achievement and marker of success for women? You know, “be fruitful and multiply? What God has joined together…” wives are the property of their husbands, etc.
Many Catholic saints (and priests/nuns) are honored in part because they sacrificed their chance to have children (and sex, equivalent to having children in Catholicism… in theory… so far at least, let’s see what the official Papal hotline has to say in 2050). “How noble and pure they are to give up their chance to fulfill their ultimate goal of procreation to devote their lives to charity, faith, and the Church,” is the general sentiment I see expressed. That or, “I’m a ruined woman so I shall get me to a nunnery,” or even worse, “I have these… urges, a career in Priesthood’s lookin’ mighty fine.”
Many Catholic Saints who have been mothers were honored for either not having an abortion despite a potentially dangerous pregnancy, or for having many children who were also Saints (or were Jesus). Most male Saints who were fathers were honored for purely political reasons. Sainthood in general is a crapshoot, as what qualifies as a “confirmed miracle” varies wildly throughout history and from case to case.
All that said, Austin was an Anglican and even if she didn’t believe in political, economic, and educational equality of rights for women in 1815 (and I’m not convinced that she didn’t, at least for wealthy women), that doesn’t preclude someone from producing a film adaptation of Emma from a feminist perspective, or a film reviewer from reviewing that film from a feminist perspective. What specifically about this movie did you like? What improvements do you think could have been made? I’m a big fan of Miranda Hart, a devout Christian, what did you think of her performance?
The questions we are discussing here are central to Jane Austen s stories. The reviewer recognized that. I will see the movie when it opens here and pay attention to the performance of Miranda Hart.
The Catholic answers to these questions are the opposite of the answers you think they are: women are not the property of men; a woman s highest calling is not being a wife or mother even if she is one; etc. Jane Austen s Anglicanism is not far removed in sensibility from the English Catholicism that preceded her when it comes to how she thought of her sex: and I find it fascinating that so many women who reject the Christian tradition still find Austen so compelling on the subject of women.
You’re gonna have to supply convincing citations for this, because the Catholic Church I know — the one an attempt was made to indoctrinate me into, and thank the goddess it failed — has no room whatsoever for women who are not either wives/mothers or nuns.
Again: Citations needed.
There are many unmarried Catholic women who are not nuns: St. Catherine of Sienna was one. An individual’s greatest fulfillment is found in a relationship to God: irrespective of marital status or whether one is a biological parent. That is the Catholic Church’s position. My point with respect to Austin is that the female protagonists she created understood their ultimate happiness was not to be found in marriage: there is a clear sense that these women chose marriage freely for good reasons: not because they would otherwise be miserable. They had a higher sense than that of their dignity and worth, and it is a sense I am familiar with having been raised as I was. The reason I spoke of my own experience as a Catholic woman is that it upheld the spiritual freedom women have and which Austin seemed to understand. I understand many have a deep problem with Catholicism but the assertion the Church teaching degrades or enslaves women isn’t true. I think there are some who consider the sexual standards of the Church to be too onerous for human beings but even if one thinks that there is no double standard in them: they apply equally to both sexes.
If you’re going to discuss Jane Austen at this length, you need to learn to spell her name. You might also want to provide citations that aren’t entirely anecdotal and subjective. Of course, I say that as an observant Jew; we’re called the People of the Book because we have a citation for everything.
Spelling criticism: totally fair.
And yet the Pope refuses to ordain women. They “should have access to positions, including ecclesial services, that do not entail Holy Orders and that can better signify the role that is theirs.” “I have no problem with naming a woman as head of a dicastery, as long as the dicastery doesn’t have jurisdiction.” Women must stick to their roles because “it’s a thing that man can’t do. Man cannot be the bride of Christ. It’s the woman, the Church, the bride of Christ.” And women aren’t allowed to vote in the Vatican synods that advise the Pope. Francis and the top Church officials are full of praise for Catholic women and celebrate their value and their worth… as long as they aren’t given official authority or access to levers of significant power.
I left Catholicism a long time ago; but if your personal experience of Catholicism strengthens your sense of self-worth and dignity as an autonomous person, then I’m sincerely glad for you. But the fact remains that the Catholic Church is a patriarchy that values its women this far, and no further, while insisting on preserving the highest levels of male power.
Yes: women will never be priests. Priests are the mediators in worship but that doesn’t make them one jot superior to women in dignity. But it can’t be argued here. There are forums where it can be. I apologize to MaryAnn. It was an interesting review.
As I said: the Church praises women for their worth and dignity, but doesn’t show it by giving them full and equal access to positions of authority. This far, and no further. Thanks for demonstrating that position clearly.
This is far wildly far afield of Austen, this movie, and my review. Please discuss the film.
Yes.
I’ve been trying for several days to come up with an appropriate response to this discussion. I think it might be an essay that has no obvious connection to Little Women.
https://www.tor.com/2020/02/18/to-write-about-the-future-is-to-represent-the-past/?utm_source=exacttarget&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_term=tordotcom-tordotcomnewsletter&utm_content=na-readblog-blogpost&utm_campaign=tordotcom&e=d83091b62c53eccbf03d4ddadd1194b09d1286c78dc27440b8073e26bad466c6