She’s seemingly totally un-interested in the subject for herself.Īutumn de Wilde’s approach to this tale of frenzied and complicated social activity is both elegant and comedic. Unlike the majority of Austen’s heroines, Emma has her own fortune, and therefore feels no pressing need to marry. Emma thinks she knows best, when in reality she wreaks havoc.

Jane Austen understood this dynamic all too well, and in Emma-the last novel to be published during her lifetime-she brings us an irrepressible and confident match-maker, albeit a totally incompetent one. Left in the hands of enthusiastic amateurs, match-making often leads to heartbreak. It probably, also, requires a professional. He sees what she’s doing, and he doesn’t like it. The two have known one another since childhood, and she can’t “put on airs” with him. Knightley ( Johnny Flynn) sees through Emma. A wrench in Emma’s plans arrives in the form of Jane Fairfax ( Amber Anderson), the niece of a local woman ( Miranda Hart), who floats into town, soaking up all the male admiration, irritating Emma. (There always is in Austen.) Emma floats above attachments, and yet she is drawn to a man who isn’t even on the scene for half the movie, a Frank Churchill ( Callum Turner), who is wealthy and about to be wealthier. Emma can’t bear this (a farmer? To quote Cher in “Clueless': “As if!”), and basically throws Harriet at the vicar, a smarmy Mr. Martin’s interactions, her feelings for him are reciprocated. Martin, a humble widowed farmer ( Connor Swindells), and based on Harriet and Mr. She has “taken on” Harriet ( Mia Goth), an orphaned girl of unknown parentage, boarding at a local girls’ school. Emma may live alone on a giant estate with her father ( Bill Nighy), but her world is very crowded.

Emma autumn de wilde