Review of Emma.

Emma is one of my favorite Jane Austin novels. This production is a travesty overall. The costumes and hair and locations are sumptuous and beautiful but do little to cover the fact that the director and perhaps lead actress did not understand the book at all.

Emma is meant to be charming and sweet if wrong headed and a bit spoiled. Her heart is good and she's usually incredibly kind except when under the influence of Frank Churchill and she immediately regrets her actions.

In this version, Emma is rendered to be a superscillious brat with no real thought for anyone but herself. Bill Nighy is seriously underused and is one of the bright spots in the film. Miranda Hart is the only other bright spot. I'm not sure what on earth they were thinking. 2 hours of film went by without hitting in any part of the story that would lead to coherence. There was zero chemistry between any of the characters. They took a story that's light and charming and made it heavy and distasteful.

I'd definitely not recommend this to either readers of the book or anyone else because they definitely will not have even a fraction of an understanding of the tone of the book and wonder why on earth anyone could care about this story at all.

How very sad that they could have done a modern remake like this and just completely miss the mark.