She is just a privileged spoilt bored socialite of a bygone era patronizing the poor and romancing the rich. Though negative, Emma is never vicious or mean. Emma’s economically challenged companion Harriet is played by another fine actress Mia Goth who is a portrait of timorous timidity, trailing in Emma’s shadows in silent silhouetted submission. This film makes its heroine’s superficiality a virtue for posh living in an era when matchmaking was the main entertainment for the rich and the bored. Most see Emma as a character-study of shallowness and vanity. Her eyebrows knit together in a display of evil design, her lips twist into a toxic smirk every time she is up to no good which is almost all across the lengthy but luminous novel-on-film. Under the watchful gaze of first-time director Autumn de Wilde, Ms Joy blossoms like a wildflower in spring… Her performance compares most favourably with Gwyneth Paltrow the 1996 big-screen version of Emma.Īnne-Taylor plays the scheming Emma with a ripe fidelity.

Joy(who has done mostly horror) gets her first-ever opportunity in a big classic picture. I am so glad to see Anne-Taylor Joy ( who is,errr, a joy to behold) and musician John Flynn play the two characters. Only one friend George Knightley makes the effort to put Jane in her place. Opinionated to the point of being a bully, Jane ploughs her way through the lives of her relatives, friends and staff members with the arrogance of God’s messenger and the impunity of a gender-aggressive feminist who thinks it’s her birthright to play havoc with others’ lives. Jane Wodehouse is one of the most unpleasant protagonists from 19th-century literature. Woodhouse, Josh O’Connor as Mr Elton,Callum Turner as Frank Churchillįor a comedy of manners, Jane Austen’s classic novel Emma is propelled by an incredibly ill-mannered heroine.

Starring Anya Taylor-Joy as Emma Woodhouse, Johnny Flynn as George Knightley, Mia Goth as Harriet Smithĭirected by Autumn de Wilde, Miranda Hart as Miss Bates, Bill Nighy as Mr.

Scheming socialite in emma