Filmmakers love Jane Austen's 1815 book Emma for its blend of social satire, romantic intrigue, and gender politics that are constantly reinterpretable. The 2009 Romola Garai miniseries follows a succession of small-screen productions, including a 1948 BBC “telefilm” with Judy Campbell. Douglas McGrath's 1996 film starring Gwyneth Paltrow (for which composer Rachel Portman received an Oscar) and Sonam Kapoor's 2010 Hindi-language romcom Aisha are recent film adaptations. However, many prefer Amy Heckerling's 1995 "queen bee" film Clueless, which cleverly adapts Austen's British parodies to an American high school.

The  colorful adaptation in 'Emma"

This colorful adaptation stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Austen's “handsome, clever and rich” heroine Emma Woodhouse, spoiled daughter of a doting widower father who has lived almost 21 years “with very little to distress or vex her”. Emma makes matches and manipulates others' relationships since she has no responsibility other than her draught-obsessed father (a sorrowful Bill Nighy, costumed to exaggerate his pipe-cleaner limbs).

Legendary music video director De Wilde flirts with Austen

Emma harshly deters Harriet, portrayed by Mia Goth with saucer-wide eyes and a gamboling playground walk, from finding true love when she joins Miss Woodhouse's group. She instead pursues the unreachable and unsuitable Mr. Elton (Josh O'Connor, oozes insufferable holiness). Meanwhile, Emma's neighboring friend-in-law Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn, blending vulnerability with weapons-grade animal attraction not seen in Austen's book) laments her casual brutality while secretly appreciating her wit and beauty. 

This newest Emma, directed by rock photographer and music-video veteran Autumn de Wilde from a story by Man Booker award winner Eleanor Catton, flirts with Austen to comic effect. De Wilde cites Bringing Up Baby and John Hughes's coming-of-age movies as inspirations for her screwball humor, which works well even if it simplifies the material.

Emma Taylor-Joy and Johnny Flynn as Mr. Knightley

Emma Taylor-Joy and Johnny Flynn as Mr. Knightley. Box Hill Films/Focus Features photo 
After showing Mr. Knightley racing gamely on a horse before stripping nude, De Wilde uses a mirrored bum-flashing theme to depict meaty desires in her genteel leads. Later, the robust cinematic spectacle of dancing screams what the speech leaves unsaid, guaranteeing that movie viewers know what's going on even as readers are still clueless. Other sequences combine near-slapstick mastication with existential uneasiness that turns into sitcom-style absurdity, which is frivolous yet amusing.

Isobel Waller-Bridge and David Schweitzer assign individuals to instruments (a harp for Emma, a bassoon for Mr. Knightley) in Emma, which mixes folk songs with operatic voices as the story crosses class lines. Live performances are important, from Emma and Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson) playing piano to Knightley singing and playing violin as Emma seethes quietly.

Miranda Hart, who plays the loquacious but unjustly injured Miss Bates, balances melancholy and pratfalls in the superb ensemble. Tanya Reynolds plays the harsh Mrs. Elton with a lifted chin and a touch of a sneer, while Callum Turner plays the cad Frank Churchill.

In the starring part, Anya Taylor-Joy plays a prickly, less likable figure that is better for it. Taylor-Joy's angular face and window-to-the-soul eyes evoke Liza Minnelli, allowing her to effortlessly convey conflicting emotions, a silent-movie quality suitable for her character.

Kave Quinn creates a lavish environment where treading mud into cloistered enclaves is a threat, and Alexandra Byrne dresses the cast in intrusively high collars that appear to offer everyone's head on a platter, a clever visual metaphor for Austen's guillotine-sharp social satire. The film may have softened that humor for the multiplex market, but it nevertheless inspires fresh versions of a timeless literature.

edit: Drive Mad 2