Emma is a story about finding your main squeeze. What's Emma's main squeeze? Finding other people's main squeezes for them, and bringing them together. She isn't interested in marriage; she's interested in other people getting married. She's a self-proclaimed matchmaker, and she is young and vibrant and quite the pistol.
The story opens with a short montage of some back stories. We learn Emma's part of a rich family. Her mom dies when she's very young. Other than that, she has a pretty normal childhood. She gets a good education. She is very privileged. She grows up and is now an attractive, young socialite. To the dismay of her older brother-in-law, she often involves herself in other people's business. Primarily, their love lives. She takes great pride in being able to put one and one together to make a happy couple. One annoying observation: she doesn't actually make any matches. Emma just kind of says stuff like “those two would go well together!” Then a couple months later the two get married. The brother-in-law actually mentions this fact, and mocks her for it. It wouldn't bother me, but I feel like I was supposed to think she was witty and had “street smarts” or something, and was really capable of being a competent matchmaker. It would make more sense to the story if she actually could do
Anyway, Emma runs into trouble when she befriends a young woman, Harriet, who is, by her standards, an inferior, but (for some reason) takes Harriet under her wing, all so that she can match her up with a rich stud. This rich stud, Mr. Elton, turns out to be in love with Emma instead of Harriet. He is also a total creeper, and wants to marry Emma for the wrong reasons. This is very bad news for everyone, especially Harriet. Earlier, Emma very slyly manipulated Harriet into rejecting a marriage proposal from a very loving farmer. The most confusing part of this is that we learn that Mr. Elton is not wealthy, yet for whatever reason, Emma pushes the idea of him and Harriet as a couple.
Emma will make you glad you don't live in England in the 1800s. Apparently, even owning a farm was not enough to be considered a decent suitor. And they throw around the term “being in love” more casually than a six-year-old does on the playground. There are about ten main characters in Emma, and it seems like each one of them is “in love” with one of the others at least once. It creates a difficult obstacle to overcome to take the characters seriously. All it does is make you scoff and say things like “psh!”
I'm not about to draw comparisons to the book, not only because I have never read it, but also because it's unfair to draw comparisons between movies and the books on which they are based. They're totally different and it goes without saying that the movie will have considerably less content and detail. However, this series felt “patchy.” I felt some parts were missing, and other parts were included for no reason.
Voiceover is used only a few times in Emma, but every single time it showed up, whatever it said verbally was almost immediately demonstrated visually afterwards. It wasn't needed. Not by a long shot. It's distracting, and it left me wondering why the heck they had to take the time to tell me “Emma lamented her actions” in voiceover when, in the next scene, we see her lamenting her actions through a much nicer, much more cinematic dream-like sequence through rooms in her house.
Though, after all that's been said, it was pretty enjoyable. I haven't seen a ton of material from England, but from what I have seen, I was in the mindset that the acting in Emma was going to be top-notch. Fortunately, I was right. I wouldn't necessarily watch it again, but the acting was easily enough to sustain the four hour-long episodes, and it held my interest almost every minute of the way. I find it intriguing that a miniseries based on a book had stronger acting than it did story. And of the story, it wasn't as predictable as most classic tales are.
When “Emma” came out as a novel in 1815, it was probably universally well-received. Now, in 2010, as a miniseries, its audience is less than that of the book. If you're a Jane Austen fan, or even a fan of classic literature, you'll like this adaptation. I think you and this adaptation would go well together. Hey, I guess this makes me a matchmaker!
DVD Bonus Features
There's a good interview with Michael Gambon, who plays Emma's father. He does a terrific job in the film and his interview is very engaging. There's also a good piece on the sets. Other less interesting, behind-the-scenes featurettes about the music and the costumes are here, too.
"Emma" is on sale February 9, 2010 and is rated NR. Drama, Romance. Directed by Jim OHanlon. Written by Jane Austen (novel), Sandy Welch. Starring Michael Gambon, Robert Bathurst, Louise Dylan, Dan Fredenburgh, Rupert Evans, Romola Garai.
