Emma

As long as there are Eng­lish teach­ers attempt­ing to engage bored teenagers and TV sched­ul­ing gaps to be filled, there will be peri­od dra­mas. They are as much a part of British pop­u­lar cul­ture as after­noon tea or Mr Blob­by, and there’s noth­ing this fair island nation loves more than a fit of col­lec­tive nos­tal­gia. Giv­en the vast num­ber of texts by Dick­ens, the Brontes, Austen et al now in the pub­lic domain, the source mate­r­i­al is read­i­ly available.

It’s no sur­prise, then, that we’re now on our fourth cin­e­mat­ic ren­di­tion of Jane Austen’s ​‘Emma’, this time pro­vid­ed by pho­tog­ra­ph­er-turned-film­mak­er Autumn de Wilde and star­ring Anya Tay­lor-Joy in the tit­u­lar role as Emma Wood­house, described by the author (and here, via a title card) as ​“hand­some, clever, and rich, with a com­fort­able home and a hap­py dis­po­si­tion.” For those unfa­mil­iar with the sto­ry, it’s a sharp roman­tic fol­ly about female friend­ship and the per­ils of medalling too much when it comes to mat­ters of the heart.

Star­ring as George Knight­ley – Emma’s friend, foe and even­tu­al love inter­est – is John­ny Fly­nn. After impress­ing in Beast he proves his ver­sa­til­i­ty at the oppo­site end of the spec­trum, some­how charm­ing despite Knightley’s con­stant dis­ap­proval of Emma’s antics. Of course, in the grand Geor­gian tra­di­tion, Emma is required to have mul­ti­ple love inter­ests, and they duly arrive in the form of Cal­lum Turner’s mys­te­ri­ous Frank Churchill and Josh O’Connor’s smarmy cler­ic Mr Elton.

O’Connor is par­tic­u­lar­ly fun to watch as he lay­ers on the the­atrics as Elton, and the cast have chem­istry togeth­er, but it’s impos­si­ble to shake the famil­iar­i­ty of it all, let alone the safe­ness. At two hours it feels like it runs out of steam fair­ly quick­ly, and fails to ever improve upon (or even rival) the inno­va­tion of enter­tain­ment val­ue of Amy Heckerling’s Clue­less, which took the same source mate­r­i­al and made it feel contemporary.

This is a film hap­py to coast on its agree­able stars and pleas­ant pro­duc­tion design, nev­er think­ing to push the enve­lope. Com­ing so soon after Arman­do Iannucci’s charm­ing­ly idio­syn­crat­ic The Per­son­al His­to­ry of David Cop­per­field, this lack of imag­i­na­tion feels even more overt. It’s not that Emma is bad, just for­get­table; a gar­land­ed feast for the eyes that fades from the mind the sec­ond the cred­its roll.