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I was looking forward to this adaptation of Emma, one of my favourite books; when I read some of the enthusiastic reviews on this site, I was encouraged to splash out on a full price DVD - and, wow, was I disappointed. The worst aspect, by far, is the dreadful script: the language wanders erratically between a clumsily put together string of rather dreary twentieth (not twenty-first) century expressions and the (very) occasional emergence of mangled bits of the original dialogue. The casting, too, is awful: Emma is supposed to be young and, though rather too self-assured, essentially quite good-natured - this version has a brash and bad-mannered heroine, shouting at people, and not just getting it all wrong but scarcely recognising that she is making such a mess of other people's lives, not just her own. Actually, from this point of view, the casting of Mrs Elton and Emma would have been much better swapped around. Knightley was a rather sad lightweight, and Mr Woodhouse far too decrepit (although a valetudinarian, he should not be portrayed as older than his early 50s). Miss Bates was quite good, but given far too few lines to say; and most of the mistakes and misconceptions which give the plot its wonderful character were clumsily handled. I had just recently found and watched for the first time the 1972 BBC adaptation, and found it utterly delightful; and for a foreshortened version, I don't think that the Kate Beckinsale 1996 one has been bettered. I really cannot see why the BBC bothered to make this version; it is so much worse than the 1972 one, and has no redeeming features that I can see at all.
score 4/10
andrew-842-657184 9 March 2012
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2578276/ |
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9-10-2020 22:42:07