Movie Moments XLIX: October 2020 (Emma Edition)

While it seems like I should have strong opinions about Emma, according to my book log, I read it it 2009. TWO THOUSAND AND NINE, friends. I remember zero thoughts I originally had about this text. What I CAN tell you for certain is I just am very not down with any of the dudes Jane Austen paints as romantic leads. (Darcy? Ugh. Knightley? UGH.) Anyway, how much more quickly would this story move if everybody was very clear about who they were talking about in every conversation?

But also: Emma (2020) has my favorite proposal scene ever. And I HATE proposal scenes.



Jane Austen’s Emma, 05 October 2020, streamed via Redbox
First, I should note that, for technical reasons unknown, I was only able to watch this on my phone. Second, this movie was filmed in 1996 for British TV. Third, Kate Beckinsale is Emma and I honestly expected her to, like, turn into a vampire or something partway through. Fourth, Mark Strong plays Knightley and it FREAKED ME OUT the entire time. Fifth, Emma’s devotion to her father is almost never made clear, which undermines pretty much the entire movie?

The forehead. I cannot look past the forehead.

When a baby comes to visit and gets passed on to Knightley, he looks at Emma and says, “I remember holding you thus once upon a time,” and I yelled, OH MY GOD BACK IT UP, YA CREEPO and stopped rooting for the couple despite their occasional chemistry. It frames all his criticism as negging and it’s gross. On the converse, Raymond Coulthard’s Frank Churchill doesn’t seem so much flirty as extremely intense about being best friends with Emma. ALSO: Riding back to comfort Emma after Churchill’s engagement is annoyingly old-school chivalrous, Knightley. And his confession of love is, Hey, Emma, nobody else will put up with my condescending ass.

There is a device wherein Emma keeps imagining the folks surrounding her--the Westons, Frank Churchill--looking directly at her (AKA the camera) and hailing her for how wonderful she is. It’s a fun little manifestation of Emma’s self-regard. And there are a couple of other little slices of Emma’s imaginings, which makes her seem more captured by fancy than her own machinations. And, coincidentally, makes her shit-talking of Jane less vicious and more speculative. At one point when Frank is rather gallant to Harriet, Emma even imagines Frank and Harriet riding off in a romantic swoop. THAT SAID, it also makes everybody’s horror at her poke at Miss Bates at the picnic way confusing--it sounds like the sharp poke of a friend, rather than a straight-up insult.

EMMA. GIRL. YOU CAN DO SO MUCH BETTER. (He legit reminds her he held her as a baby while he proposes and it makes the subsequent kiss a horror show. “Do you like me as much as you did when you were three weeks old?” WHAT THE HELL DUDE.) What I'm saying is that if we weren't supposed to be throwing down for Emma/Jane Fairfax, Austen did it wrong.

Anyway, the two cuts of Emma going, OMG HARRIET, whenever she hears some dude is no longer available is HILARIOUS.

Emma (1996), 06 October 2020, streamed via HBO Now
Knightley enters the film with a joke, but he also announces, “I’m practically a brother to you, Emma,” so you can imagine my confusion. Who is this dude? Why is he smiling so much? Given the way he enters, though, almost immediately making sure Mr Woodhouse is comfortably seated by the fire, reinforces the idea that everybody is catering to the old chap, Emma most of all.


This movie is 100% soft lighting. It’s distracting.

The archery scene is pretty fun, though. It’s a nice sublimation of their argument about Martin and Harriet, which allows them to sound like adults on equal footing without getting too heated. And there’s the bonus that these two often and deliberately hang out together, which does a nice job of underlining their relationship without too much sentiment. Also: “Try not to kill my dogs.” And even when they discuss their age gap, it’s framed as a way to clarify they now feel about the same, maturity-wise. And they spent most parties heads together, whispering. Adorbs. (Emma’s utter delight when Knightley asks Harriet to dance is possibly the best part of the movie.) And Jeremy Northam’s delivery of, “Brother and sister? No, no. Indeed we are not,” has a lot of...intention behind it.



Paltrow’s Emma feels more innocently delighted in the world--there’s no sense of Emma-the-matchmaker at first, even though she makes a point of introducing Harriet to Elton. She’s shallow, but not snobbish about Miss Bates and Jane Fairfax. Actually, most of the lines that would be acid in another version of Emma sounds more like...an artless articulation of subconscious thought than anything else. There’s no heat to her disdain, just petty jealousy. (Her poke at Miss Bates at the picnic, here, is careless but misplaced pouting. Knightley’s reaction is much more a, Dude, WTF reaction more than a dressing down.)

Toni Collette’s Harriet is a fun spin on Harriet, too--she’s not self-conscious, but her flightiness still serves as an explanation for how easily she lets Emma steer her. (She has a little purse labeled “Harriet Smith’s Most Precious Treasures,” guys. That is perhaps all we need to know about Harriet, ever.) A lot of humor is derived, for some reason, from Harriet flashbacks. It makes sense, narratively, but along with the hard cuts to overlap dialogue, it feels a little jarring.




Alan Cumming is Elton and Ewan McGregor is Churchill.
I can’t even with their respective haircuts.

McGregor’s Frank is a bit flirty with Emma, but it reads more like an “aren’t we bright and shining young people” type of interaction. Also, seeing him rise from the audience to duet with Emma reads like nothing more than a dude who cannot stand being out of the spotlight. And they do make a point of showing him paying a bit of attention to Jane, as well.



Y’all, Northam’s the only Austen hero I’ve never wanted to punch in the face. This is boggling!

Clueless, 08 October 2020, streamed via Google Play
I was a teenager in California when this movie first came out. THE UPSPEAK IS REAL.


Not a lot of this is representative, but “I totally paused” at a stop sign is 100% a California thing.

• Someone’s written a crossover where Cher from #Clueless is on the debate stage against #BillAndTed, right? Because I feel like that’s a thing that could plausibly be.
• Oh, right, here Cher and Josh are actually kind of siblings? Also: His second line is about Cher’s boobs? *facepalm* ALSO: I want to analyze their couch flirting, but Josh is wearing an AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL shirt, in case we didn’t want to bother spending time to get to know him.
• The whole step-sibling thing is, as we all have acknowledged PLENTY, is weird, but I do really like how Cher’s dad still considers Josh his kid.
• CHER IS FIFTEEN, Josh, you creeper. (The world’ o fandom would be so different if they actually cast kids who look like high school students in shows/films about high schools.)
• Cher’s another version of Emma who isn’t a jerk: she genuinely believes she has wisdom to offer folks who don’t exist in the world like she does. (Cher is so very White Feminist.)
• OH MAN remember when this was a ridiculous marker of shallow people? Now it’s normal, except they’re, like, actually talking on the phones?
• Okay, so, like, I never wore plaid with shoulder pads, but the miniskirts took up a significant portion of my wardrobe. Chances that I wasn’t influenced by this movie fashion at all?
• Most of Cher and Dionne’s advice to Tai is well-meaning but nonsense, but they are absolutely correct: It is never, EVER, worth driving out to the Valley.
• "I have the picture you took in her locker” makes way more sense when it’s a painting Emma did.
• I have to transcribe Josh’s date’s rant in its full glory, guys: ”The man is ridiculous--he does not have one unique thought in his little, puny brain!”
  "I think that there’s some merit in learning form straight off.”
  "Oh, Josh, please! He’s taken our minds at the most fecund point and restrained them before they’ve wandered through the garden of ideas. It’s just like Hamlet said: To thine own self be true.”
  Cher correcting her that Polonious said that, not Hamlet, is glorious.
• "You see how picky I am about my shoes and they only go on my feet.” Bless you, Cher. Bless you.
• Extremely gay Christian is 100% a perfect analogue for intensely be-my-best-friend Frank Churchill. (Also, dude is reading William S Burroughs in class? Dude. My dude.)
• Josh using THE PATRIARCHY to express his jealousy about Cher is pretty gross. (Cher’s dad clearly knowing Josh is panting after Cher is...a different kind of gross. But I guess his relationship with Josh is more...mentor and protege? I don’t know, guys.)
• This is an accurate portrayal of teenage drivers upon first attempting a California freeway.
  
  
  
• Tai’s transformation from Harriet to a mean version of Cher is FASCINATING.
• While their ostensible ages make it pretty gross, this is an excellent teen movie montage.
  
  
  
• Travis being completely convinced that he’s buddies with Cher is possibly the most adorable thing ever.
• CHER IS FIFTEEN, JOSH, WHAT THE HELL. I mean, the actors are decidedly NOT underage, BUT STILL.
• Meanwhile, Tai/Travis FOREVER, friends.

Emma. 09 October 2020, streamed via Google Play

• I must say, Bill Nighy lends Mr Woodhouse personality that actually makes Emma’s and Knightley’s devotion legible. (He’s sweet and snarky and fragile and flighty. It’s nice.)
  
• It’s significant that we get to see Knightley’s naked backside just baaaaarely after we see his face. I’m not sure what, exactly, it signifies, but whatever. Anyway, here’s another Knightley that smiles and I approve mightily.
  
  
• Knightley and Emma seem much more likely when we see that they’re both rather young and seemingly close in age. Their friendship is as much because they’re youngsters as that they’re neighbors, and they pick fights with each other because they don’t actually know how to flirt.
  
  
• Anya Taylor-Joy’s Emma is my favorite version: She’s obviously clever and she’s relatively kind, but not very patient with folks who aren’t as quick as she. The mean girl vibes are the grumpiness of someone whose frustration has bubbled over. And her manipulation of Harriet seems, in fact, to be an extension of the way she coddles and handles her father--she’s been managing him for so long that she doesn’t know how to not do it to people.
  
  
• This version of Mr Elton is perfectly acceptable, but I can’t help but wish he was Matt Smith’s Collins from #PrideAndPrejudiceAndZombies. Meanwhile, this Harriet is naive AND filled with self-doubt, which...sigh.
  
  
• Watching Emma’s face as Miss Bates raves about Jane Fairfax gives me the distinct impression that her resentment of Miss Bates might be because of her seeming preference for Jane. Emma...is jealous...of Miss Bates’s affection for Jane?
• I am rather obsessed with Emma’s fashions in this film. This blog has pics of many of them; below are half of them.
  
  
  
  
  
• There’s a scene where Knightley grumps about Emma being puffed up about Harriet’s admiration and how she isn’t industrious enough and how she should fall in love without surety of being loved back and MY GOD Mrs Weston must have married in part so she could get away from these two kids and their anti-flirting. (And an interesting spin on Knightley’s attentions to Jane--he’s not just being kind, he’s deliberately stoking Emma’s competitive instincts. Not about him, but just generally having someone just as genteel and talented as Jane in the vicinity.)
• Knightley wrote Martin’s letter to Harriet, and Emma wrote Harriet’s refusal to Martin. Lordy, these two.
  
  
• Emma and Knightley cooing over the baby together is the most adorable and I am VEXED that I could not find a gif of them. (It’s also a nice touch that Emma’s sister is as much of a hypochondriac as her father is, even if it is by proxy for the baby.)
• Everyone freaking out when snow is mentioned is HILARIOUS, and then Mr Woodhouse murmurs, “It was snowing when your mother died,” and my heart broke a little.
• Frank Churchill in this version isn’t so much flirty or intensely befriending Emma, but paying her attention so his father doesn’t know about the secret engagement to Jane.
• Wait, Churchill and Knightley grew up neighborly as well! Which does rather underline Knightley’s constant antipathy to Churchill. Oh man, there must be a TON of slashfic out there. (Same for Emma and Jane, of course.)
  
  
• I legit sang Jane’s song for a choral class once. I was very bad at remembering the words.
  
  
  
• JUST MAKE OUT ALREADY GOD
  
  
• Honestly, there is no moment more glorious than Knightley flinging himself down in a pout.
  
  
• This movie is so gorgeously shot.
  
  
• Emma’s insult to Miss Bates at the picnic is very much an, Oh, shit, I said that out loud variety. Like, she was so caught up in Churchill treating her as the ultimate wit that she forgot to not play the game. And her fight with Knightley feels very much like the two of them are both all roiled up and self-conscious and don’t want to be around anyone else and finally found a point of contention they could use to clash.
  
• ”If I loved you less, then I might be able to talk about it more.” Damn, Knightley. And then the nosebleed! And they realize all their matchmaking has gone horribly wrong! This is possibly my favorite proposal scene ever? (But also: THAT TREE.)
  
  
  
• Mr Woodhouse having just about enough of this and maneuvering Knightley and Emma into snuggling on the sofa is a perfect turnabout on all of Emma’s managing. (Also, so...wait, who inherits which estate now? I don’t know why, after four movies, I suddenly care about this.)
  

I suppose I’ll attempt to evaluate this bouquet of Emmas:

• Kate Beckinsale’s Emma: Unfortunately blinkered by her drive to make romantic tales manifest, she thinks first of the stories being woven around her, while the people they star are secondary
• Gwyneth Paltrow’s Emma: Fairly certain that being an ingenue means she is innocent of any wrongdoing, as her very maidenness means she doesn’t need to take care with anything she says
• Alicia Silverstone’s Cher: Lives her life of privilege in bliss, descending from on high to extend her blessing towards others who, puzzlingly, do not have the courage to live their lives as she does
• Anya Taylor-Joy’s Emma: Cunning and impatient and beloved, and having managed her father for so long that she has completely forgotten she doesn’t have to orchestrate the lives of everybody around her

‘Twere it my druthers, I think I’d opt for Brittany Murphy’s Tai in Harriet’s place, Northam’s Knightley (perhaps adjusted slightly younger), Anya Taylor-Joy’s Emma, and Coulthard’s Churchill. Though I’m not sure an acid Emma would quite fit with an overly smiley Knightley. .


Okay, no, I prefer the 2020 Knightley, too. But I stand firm on Tai and Coulthard’s Churchill.