WHAT were "they" talking about?! Janeites must be much pickier than the Dickensians or followers of Bronte or Gaskell, because this is an awesome miniseries.
I'll start off by saying that, yes, the dialogue is simplified (though I wouldn't consider it modernized), and most of it is re-written but not to the degree of other beloved adaptations like Bleak House. I'm surprised folks were so upset with Sandy Welch's screenplay, her modifications are no different than Andrew Davies' rearrangement of his scripts, so if you are okay with the works of Andrew Davies, you should be fine with this.
Another qualm I've seen is that Emma has bad manners in this movie. Um...Emma has bad manners in the book.
Emma is one of the few JA books I've read, and I never got the idea that Emma cared much for decorum. after all, she's spoilt by her family and doesn't mind her governess. I actually liked the use of Romola Garai's sloppiness, it well portrayed the way Emma was so out-of-touch with the real life of her society, and as Emma's character improves, so does her posture. :) (And if Esther Summerson can stomp around Bleak House and swear and no one says anything about it, I think Emma can afford to slouch.)
Okay, on with the rest of the review. As I've already explained, I really appreciate Sandy Welch's script. Cranford suffered a bit with its old-fashioned language, which sounded fake to the ear, but Emma's easily talkable speech translated well. I noticed that Welch seems to focus more on the relationships between chracters, a quality I liked very much and which sets this apart from the other Emma adaptations. Instead of showing graceful people in beautiful clothing, this one dug into the subtext in the book, and came up with evidence why Mr. Woodhouse was so fearful, why Emma was so careless, why Miss Bates chattered endlessly. I especially liked the treatment of Miss Bates' character. In the A&E version, I didn't understand why it was such a big deal that, after all the junk she pulled, Emma was finally reprimanded for teasing Miss Bates. In this one, the scene is more dramatic because Miss Bates is more pathetic, and you actually get Mr. Knightley's frustration with Emma.
I thought the acting was great all around. Romola Garai was a lovely Emma - unlike Kate Beckinsale, she made the character watchable. She was still a bit of a jerk, but she was also quite likeable at times, so you can see why so many people are charmed by her and put up with her. I'll admit, JLM is not how I pictured Mr. Knightley, but he's a good one. Something interesting about JLM, though, is that unlike some of the other Knightley-actors, the viewer along with Emma at first doesn't recognize how dreamy Knightley really is - he fades into the background around Frank and Mr. Elton, and that is definitely what Austen wanted - it would make the ending that more surprising, if Emma and Knightley didn't have such chemistry in every scene they share. Of course the acting was sound elsewhere - Michael Gambon and Tamsin Greig were terrific, Rupert Evans as Frank grew on me, and Blake Ritson did a great job as Mr. E (because the actor is just on the line between handsome and odd-looking, he believably shifted from hero to villain). The only one I didn't like was Laura Pyper, whose Jane Fairfax was very irritating and mousy.
And the costumes! Believe it or not, I'm usually not a big period costume fan, and Regency is at the end of my list - but I loved the costumes in this! They seemed very real, and best of all, the actresses weren't crammed into revealing Regency bodices. They wore charming colored jumpers, cute Japanese slippers, the BEST outerwear and hats I've ever seen, and Emma's yellow sprig gown is to die for!
Well. Do you think I liked this series? You'd be right. I do understand how some folksk may not be crazy for this version, and that's the beauty of having several to choose from! However, this one made me appreciate Austen and appreciate her characters. This is the version of Emma I'll choose every time. :)
4.5/5 stars (deduction for updated language and JANE FAIRFAX.)
Current mood:
high
11 comments:
Well said!! I definitely think that portraying the background stories of various characters really helped the viewer understand them better. Great review. =)
I didn't particularly care for the portrayal of Jane Fairfax, either, and I also didn't like Miss Taylor in this version (mainly due to the script, not the casting).
I would really like to see Sandy Welch do "A Tale of Two Cities" for the BBC. I've been pondering which writer I'd like to see do that one, and now I've got one. I liked the way she rounded out the characters here (even though some Janeites didn't like it, which I do understand), and I'd love to see ATOTC given that sort of treatment -- I think it would work marvelously. Especially as opposed to the kind of treatment it would get from Andrew Davies, who would probably make Sydney a thoroughly sordid character and give Lucie shrewish tendencies, forcing me to hunt him down and smack him.
Speaking of ATOTC (and I'm now thoroughly off-topic, sorry), check out this great "Wishbone" wallpaper! I know you loved the show so I had to share it. It was made by "queensjoy" at ogeecons on LiveJournal.
http://i47.tinypic.com/afk64z.jpg
Excellent review. Makes me want to go watch it again...
Excellent review. I liked the series, too. I did take exception to Emma's slouchiness, but it wasn't enough to turn me off to the series.
"Another qualm I've seen is that Emma has bad manners in this movie. Um...Emma has bad manners in the book."
Well, there's bad manners and bad manners. Emma was arrogant and impolite, but I can't imagine her as anything but perfectly proper in sitting and eating and posture and manner of speech and things.
"Instead of showing graceful people in beautiful clothing, this one dug into the subtext in the book, and came up with evidence why Mr. Woodhouse was so fearful, why Emma was so careless, why Miss Bates chattered endlessly."
I always wanted to slap Mr. Woodhouse, but I liked how they brought out a good reason for his idiocy. And I really liked Miss Bates, though I did think she looked far too sensible for the role.
"I'll admit, JLM is not how I pictured Mr. Knightley, but he's a good one. Something interesting about JLM, though, is that unlike some of the other Knightley-actors, the viewer along with Emma at first doesn't recognize how dreamy Knightley really is - he fades into the background"
Absolutely! I was disappointed in him at first, and then I began to like him, and by the end I was all dreamy-eyed over him.
And Blake Ritson! I've seen him in something before, and I think he's remarkably handsome, so it astonished me how purely nasty he was able to become. He made me gag. Brilliant acting.
As to Jane Fairfax...I liked her. I liked her immensely--but not as Jane Fairfax. There was nothing about her that made her the seemingly cold and superior person who made Emma feel inferior and thus dislike her. She was little and adorably cute and sad and not Jane Fairfax.
Atlanta and Marian, thanks and glad you liked my review!
@Gina: haha, love the Wishbone wallpaper! You must have seen where, on the PBS website, Sandy Welch said she wanted to do an adaptation of ATOTC, right? I agree, I think she'd do a great job - she was also the writer of N&S and OMF 1999. I also agree that Davies can sometimes maul his characters in modernizing them. Witness Esther Summerson. I guess Davies' Agnes will have to run an opium den by night to counteract all her virtue, lol.
@ Christy: Ah, good point on the bad manners. Maybe I'm missing something there. :) Also, I can kind of see what you mean about Jane Fairfax - she was a good character but she wasn't Jane. Jane was one of the characters I actually liked in the A&E version.
I just found a blog that might interest you (if you don't know it already). It's all about the costumes of period dramas.
http://www.costumersguide.com/index.shtml
Did Welch really say that?? That's great! Who knows what the BBC is thinking these days, but I so hope they take her up on that!
Quote {{WHAT were "they" talking about?! Janeites must be much pickier than the Dickensians or followers of Bronte or Gaskell, because this is an awesome miniseries.}} Un~quote
AMEN!!!! After seeing Emma, (which I ♥!) I was a little shocked to see so many people grinding it into the ground! I thought it was all around excellent, and I would be very pleased if every movie/miniseries/tv show was made this well!
Allison Elizabeth ♥
Hi Allison, welcome to the blog and thanks for leaving a comment! I'm glad to see that you agreed, and I definitely agree with what you said - I would be very pleased if every movie/miniseries/tv show was made this well!
This is the first GOOD review I have heard on this 'Emma'! All the other ones were 'it was okay' or 'I did not like this Emma'! Okay, I SO want to watch this movie!! I'm getting quite anxious!! :)
It seems it's mainly the bloggers who dislike it - this Emma has the best star-rating so far on IMDB. :) I do hope you'll give it a try, I really love it! (And the DVD apparently has more than the PBS version I saw. ;) )
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