Emma starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Mia Goth is so good... however, the only jarring note is hit by its conspicuous lack of ethnic diversity

Emma                                                                                                 Cert: U, 2hrs  4mins

Rating:

Before it hits what eventually turns out to be its totally delicious stride, there are moments – more than a few of them – when this new production of Jane Austen’s Emma looks as if it’s simply going to be too much. 

All that verdant English countryside, all those young women bustling around in dresses that look like nighties, all those carriages busily rushing to and fro. Throw in Isobel Waller-Bridge and David Schweitzer’s prettily jaunty music, Bill Nighy in a succession of frock coats, and it’s like walking into a Jane Austen theme park.

But slowly – and the stressed or slightly Austen-averse will need to give it a good 20 minutes – it settles down, helped by the enduring appeal of Austen’s much adapted plot (shallow, vain young woman mistakenly believes she has a gift for matchmaking but causes only mischief and misery) and by a handful of wonderful supporting performances.

Mia Goth needs to take a bow, because it is thanks to her early efforts that we slowly come to realise how good Anya Taylor-Joy is as Austen’s unsympathetic heroine, Emma Woodhouse

Mia Goth needs to take a bow, because it is thanks to her early efforts that we slowly come to realise how good Anya Taylor-Joy is as Austen’s unsympathetic heroine, Emma Woodhouse

Nighy, Johnny Flynn and particularly Mia Goth all need to take a bow, because it is thanks to their early efforts that we slowly come to realise how good Anya Taylor-Joy is as Austen’s unsympathetic heroine, the ‘handsome, clever and rich’ Emma Woodhouse.

Swapping her customary dark tresses for a veritable frenzy of blonde ringlets, the Florida-born but London-raised actress is a delight in a role that in the past quarter-century has been played by the classy likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Beckinsale and Romola Garai.

It can’t be easy playing someone that even Austen thought ‘no one but myself will much like’ but Taylor-Joy, who to date has been something of a horror specialist, gets it pretty much spot-on. 

When a young local farmer proposes to Harriet Smith (Goth), Emma believes her friend can do better – maybe the vain local cleric, Mr Elton (Josh O’Connor, above)?

When a young local farmer proposes to Harriet Smith (Goth), Emma believes her friend can do better – maybe the vain local cleric, Mr Elton (Josh O’Connor, above)?

In early scenes we can see the character’s essential vacuity and deluded self-centredness as she takes full credit for the marriage between her former governess and the widowed local landowner Mr Weston.

But we can also see the underlying charm and spirit that have made Emma’s handsome neighbour, George Knightley (Flynn), an almost daily visitor to Hartfield, the fine country house she shares with her nervy, draught-sensitive (‘Can you feel a chill?’) but fabulously well-dressed father (Nighy). 

All she needs to do is a little growing up, and to discover that love is not the simple game she believes it is. But then she has lived only ‘nearly 21 years’.

We can see the underlying charm and spirit in Emma that has made her handsome neighbour, George Knightley (Johnny Flynn, above with Taylor-Joy), an almost daily visitor to Hartfield

We can see the underlying charm and spirit in Emma that has made her handsome neighbour, George Knightley (Johnny Flynn, above with Taylor-Joy), an almost daily visitor to Hartfield

While Nighy makes us laugh and the smouldering Flynn looks hugely dashing in riding boots and sideburns, it is Goth, who co-starred with Taylor-Joy and 1917 star George MacKay in The Secret Of Marrowbone, who gives this adaptation its beating heart. 

She is touchingly brilliant as the lowly-born Harriet Smith, totally enthralled by her prettier, cleverer, richer friend but dreaming of a true love of her own.

When a young local farmer proposes, she thinks she has. But Emma believes her friend can do better – maybe the vain local cleric, Mr Elton (Josh O’Connor)? Only we’re pretty sure his romantic interests lie elsewhere. 

And so this almost Shakespearean comedy of mismatched romance and misunderstandings begins…

IT'S A FACT

Anya Taylor-Joy almost missed becoming a model at 16. She thought the scout tailing her was a stalker and tried to run away. 

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The film may be produced by Working Title and have all that company’s extraordinary film-making expertise to call on, yet it is directed by an American, Autumn de Wilde, best known for her photography and music videos, and here making her feature-film debut. 

And a very a good job she makes of it, delivering a film that always looks gorgeous and drawing wonderful performances from a talented cast that soon also includes Miranda Hart as the garrulous but lonely busybody Miss Bates. 

Look out particularly for some wonderful dance scenes sizzling with erotic potential in a way that’s tempting to describe as definitely non-Austen-like but probably isn’t.

Novelist Eleanor Catton, who won the 2013 Man Booker prize with The Luminaries, supplies a likeable and enjoyably amusing screenplay that remains reasonably faithful to the book but, rightly, makes the most of modern resonances about the position of women – and clever women, in particular – today.

In a film that features bottoms, a perfectly timed nosebleed and a very funny piano scene, the only slightly jarring note is hit by its conspicuous lack of ethnic diversity. The recent adaptation of David Copperfield by Armando Iannucci showed just how effective so-called ‘colour-blind’ casting can be, but here, by conspicuous contrast… well, let’s just say you can see it earning the unwanted hashtag #emmasowhite.

Which is a shame because it’s #emmasogood too.

 

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK

 

Sonic The Hedgehog (PG) 

Rating:

Nine months ago, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu set the bar very high indeed for live- action films designed to reinvigorate old video-game characters that were huge in the Nineties but in danger of being forgotten.

Alas, the new film designed to do just that for Sonic the Hedgehog – best known for being alien, blue and running at very high speeds – doesn’t come close. Where the Pokémon reboot oozed class and revelled in its film-noir feel, this seems like a tired old road-trip movie for which most of the budget has been spent on some familiar-looking visual effects (lots of drones) and persuading Jim Carrey to take on the part of Sonic’s nemesis, Dr Robotnik.

What happens? Well, Sonic – now furrier, definitely with two eyes but still small, fast and blue – is perfectly happy with his quiet new life in small-town America. 

Sonic, above – now furrier, definitely with two eyes but still small, fast and blue – is perfectly happy with his quiet new life in small-town America

Sonic, above – now furrier, definitely with two eyes but still small, fast and blue – is perfectly happy with his quiet new life in small-town America

But then, and this is complicated, he has a run-in with local cop Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), drops his magic rings when Tom is thinking of San Francisco and, suddenly, said vital rings are on the top of that city’s Transamerica Pyramid. 

Which leaves Sonic and Tom little choice but to pile into his pick-up, head to the West Coast and, we hope, become buddies along the very long way.

It’s clearly aimed more at children than accompanying adults, but in an under-developed, underwritten way that soon proves wearing.

 

Spycies (PG)  

Rating:

Remember Zootopia, the rather good 2016 cartoon about a young police officer who happened to be a rabbit? Or last year’s Will Smith animation about a secret agent who was turned into a pigeon, Spies In Disguise?

Well, Spycies is quite like both of them, with Vladimir, a secret agent who just happens to be a cat, teaming up with Hector, ditto but a rat, to recover a powerful energy-producing material stolen from the deep-sea platform they were guarding.

So far, so anthropomorphic and familiar. But while this may enjoy decent animation, it suffers from a convoluted story that tries – and fails – to combine espionage with global warming. 

Vladimir, a secret agent who just happens to be a cat, teams up with Hector, ditto but a rat, to recover a powerful energy-producing material stolen from a deep-sea platform

Vladimir, a secret agent who just happens to be a cat, teams up with Hector, ditto but a rat, to recover a powerful energy-producing material stolen from a deep-sea platform

There’s also a baffling oddness that involves a bee film star who wants an antennae reduction, a mammoth who’s been shaving his fur to pass as an elephant, and a snake that turns into a fire-breathing dragon when it drinks coffee.

Not nearly as much fun as it sounds. 

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