Critic Reviews

I can’t say this is head and shoulders above any other “Emma.” to come along. But de Wilde, her leading lady and her production team have made the matchmaker in need of her own match fresh and modern in a period piece detailed — right down to the acapella folk tunes and hymns sung on the soundtrack.

This Emma fully earns its titular period, as well as an early place on any list of 2020’s most enchanting films.

With our current cultural moment so defined by protracted digital isolation—and its cousin, anonymity-enabled cruelty—the best thing de Wilde’s Emma. could do was lean so hard into the sublimity of Austen’s original that, for the entirety of its gloriously phone-free two-hour runtime, its audience might feel, collectively, transported. And that, it absolutely does.

For being a period piece, Emma is not stodgy at all. The lightning-paced repartee is incredibly funny, and the tit for tat dialogue is full of fierce wit thanks to Elanor Catton’s script, and obviously Jane Austen.

Witty, wry, spry, and deliciously and effortlessly romantic, this is Austen as she is supposed to be.

You’d think we would be Emma-ed out by now. Not so. The new adaptation, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, and directed by Autumn de Wilde, is here, and it’s wonderful!

This film is both a loving homage to Austen and a celebration of fashion and decorative arts.

Does every generation of moviegoers get the Emma it deserves? If so, we are in a lucky moment.

Mr. Woodhouse’s daughter may be a case study in the perils of playing God with others’ hearts, but Emma. is proof that bringing a timeless book and fresh talent together is still a worthy kind of artistic matchmaking.

De Wilde doesn’t strain for relevance or reinvent the wheel, she just unapologetically serves dessert for dinner until you’re left with the satisfaction of eating a three-course meal.