EMMA

About a third of the way in I was feeling that this Jane Austen adaptation was OK but all a bit lightweight.

Emma is happily arranging everyone’s lives to her satisfaction, absolutely confident that she is always right. In the case of her recently acquired best friend, Harriet, who is new to the area, Emma’s influence is potentially disastrous, causing Harriet to turn down an offer of marriage from a suitor, Robert Martin, whom Emma considers to be too low on the social ladder.

Other than this though there was not a lot to report.  Bill Nighy was being Bill Nighy as Emma’s dad and Johnny Flynn was hovering in the background as George, a childhood friend of Emma's (I think - his status was rather unclear to me) who disapproves of her haughtiness and interfering ways.

Thankfully though things pick up with the introduction of several new characters, notably Frank Churchill who Emma has her eye on, and the mysterious Jane Fairfax who is annoyingly accomplished and opaque.

I’m not sure why but I never got a handle on Jane’s character. At one point she confesses to Emma to being in a very bad place mentally and emotionally (I’m paraphrasing) yet this is never explained, and we then learn that she has been secretly engaged to Frank so really she has nothing to complain about.  All a bit odd.

Never mind, the latter stages of the film are all about Emma coming to realise the error of her ways and about her and George discovering a mutual attraction that somehow had previously been buried beneath their gentle animosity towards each other.

There’s some great scenes including a picnic at Box Hill where Emma is unforgivably rude to the garrulous Miss Bates (nicely played by Miranda Hart) and the subsequent scene where Emma tries to make amends. In similar vein Emma has to make good the wrong she had done to Robert Martin so that he and Harriet can get married.

Best of all is the sexual chemistry between Emma and George, evident in a ball scene, and in the way they kiss in the closing scene.  Well OK, their love affair is not up there with that between Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy but it’s fine to be sure.

There’s some humour provided by Josh O’Connor as the Reverend Mr Elton and his ghastly new wife, and I enjoyed the score which mixes both folk songs and classical music to very good effect.

The cherry on top however is the outstanding performance as Emma by Anya Taylor-Joy,    who had previously caught my eye in the miniseries ‘The Queen’s Gambit’.  Her facial expressions throughout do a wonderful job of just doing enough to convey her inner feelings.

So this is not quite up to the standard of  ‘Pride and Prejudice’ or ‘Sense and Sensibility’ (both of which are unimpeachable masterworks) but it's a superior entertainment nevertheless.