"Emma"
                             A Film Review by
                           Linda Lopez McAlister
                           on "The Women's Show"
                          WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL
                              August 31, 1996

        As I guess some of you may have noticed, I've taken the
month of August off from movie reviewing as I went on vacation and
then spent the rest of the time dealing with family needs.  I did
manage to see some films along the way, including "Emma" one
bright Sunday morning in Los Angeles (where to my delight I found I
could go to a movie as early as 10:00 a.m.)   Now I'm back and
"Emma" has just arrived in Tampa not only at the Tampa Theater but
at a couple of the cinemaplexes, as well.  Jane Austen continues to
take  Hollywood by storm, it seems.  This is the third Austen novel
to be made into a feature film in the last year or so (the fourth
such film if you're willing to stretch it and count "Clueless," Amy
Heckerling's Beverly Hills high school version of "Emma").

     If you've seen either "Sense and Sensibility" or "Persuasion"
(or, of course, read an Austen novel) you know in general what to
expect: early 19th C. English country life from the point of view
of bright young women who, because of the strictures placed upon
them by their gender, class, and social conventions have a very
small world in which to operate.  Small by our standards, perhaps,
but as happens whenever one is restricted to a small environment,
the details begin to loom large and things that might seem quite
minor from a cosmic perspective take on quite major proportions
within their own setting.  Austen's eye for detail and her
wickedly sly commentary on the mores of her world are delicious.
Douglas McGrath, who directed and wrote the screenplay, does a
good job, I thought, of interpreting Austen on the screen for a
late 20th C. audience.

   Of course he has a huge advantage, namely a leading actor
(Gweneth Paltrow) who seems perfect in every way for the role of
Emma.  I'll join the long line of critics who say that she's just
right in the part.  I'd need to see some of her other work (which I
haven't seen yet) to know how much of this is acting skill and how
much is the fact that her own background of toney East-side
Manhattan private schools gives her the contemporary equivalent to
Emma's upper-crust, slightly snooty, self-confident air.  I'm
inclined to think it's a bit of both. Paltrow, did grow up with
privilege, but she is also, after all, the daughter of one of my
alltime favorite actors, Blythe Danner.  And we know from many
examples that acting talent seems to run in families, take the
Redgraves, for example, or, closer to the topic, the fact that two
of the best performances in character roles in "Emma,"
Miss and Mrs. Bates, a chatterbox spinster and her deaf mother,
are given by Emma Thompson's sister and mother (a tidbit I owe to
Roger Ebert).

    Emma is a young woman who has a passion for matchmaking and for
trying to see to it that the people she's interested in get paired
off in just the way she thinks they should.  She has done this
before and as the story opens, she has found a couple of new people
she's intent on bringing together.  Miss Smith (played by the
erstwhile Muriel of "Muriel's Wedding," Toni Collette) is
encouraged to turn down the farmer who would be perfect for her and
hope for a match with the local clergyman.  This turns into a
terrible miscalculation for the clergyman fancies Emma herself.
She, however, seems smitten (to the extent that she allows herself
to be with anyone) with a newcomer, Mr. Churchill.  The clergyman then
marries a most disagreeable woman from outside the community who
comes back and gives Emma some real competition when it comes to
being the arbiter of the social world in their little community.
Meanwhile poor Miss Smith is miserable.  Watching all this with
what seems like detatched amusement is Emma's brother-in-law Mr.
Knightly (Jeremy Northam).  The verbal byplay between Mr. Knightly
and Emma is delightful and his stature rises immensely when he's
willing to stand up to Emma and tell her off in no uncertain terms
when she has been particularly cruel and insensitive to Miss
Bates.

   In the end everyone gets suitably paired off, but not before
Emma has learned a few lessons and been taken down a few pegs on
the arrogance scale, leaving room to hope that her character will
grow to be as beautiful as her exterior under proper tutelage.

    In brief, it's a far more interesting version of "Emma" than
"Clueless" was, at least for people in my age group (i.e., getting up
there).  At least it's not full of so much current high school slang
you feel you need an interpreter.

For the WMNF Women's Show, this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women
and Film.
     <Linda Lopez McAlister is professor of women's studies at the
University of South Florida, Tampa.>

Copyright 1996.  All rights reserved.  Please do not copy or
reproduce this review without permission of the author:
mcaliste@chuma.cas.usf.edu.