Reviews

I really liked this new take on an old, but much-beloved story. I liked the livelier and more robust presentation, and though it was less refined than the other "Emma" productions have been, I find I didn't really miss the refinement. I think the spirit of "Emma" was well-served here. I was also glad to see a little bit of the story through the eyes of others: Frank Churchill alone at the window, holding the most recent note from his aunt that he knows will summon back to her much too soon for his liking. That doesn't appear in the book, but I really liked it here. Also, a few scenes taken from the day-room of the London-based Knightly family to give a fresh perspective of the events happening in Highbury. Emma actually worries that maybe she has been too much sheltered and is really not as well-traveled as a truly sophisticated person would be expected to be. The book's Emma never even considers this. It's simply never brought up, but it doesn't make it any less viable in this telling of the story.

Harriet's story, which takes up the first 3rd of the book and a good part of most of the film adaptations is given a secondary treatment here, and we are at last gifted with a Mr. Elton who looks nothing like the clown he is made out to be in other adaptations, but is more true to Miss Austen's words; a pretty decent-looking young fellow. And an interesting twist on his marriage: rather than going along with his horrid, snobbish wife, he actually appears several times to be embarrassed by her behavior. Christina Cole is fabulous as Mrs. Elton and is not given enough screen time, but they would have needed another hour at least to devote to her all the time she deserved.

At last we have a Jane Fairfax who is worthy of Jane Austen's description! She is played here by Laura Pyper as delicate and as refined as she is written, but she is not the fragile, stiff and emotionless mannequin she is made out to be in every other "Emma" film I've seen. She has feelings and shows them, both positive and negative. This is the first adaptation I've seen where I actually LIKED Jane. And for once, Mr. Knightly is played by an actor who is actually the age Mr. Knightly is supposed to be: and attractive, still-young man in only his mid-30's. In all the other adaptations, he's portrayed by actors much older than the 16 years that are supposed to separate Emma and Mr. Knightly. Once again, I feel that Emma's father is played too harshly. He is, of course, a hypochondriac and worrywart of the worst sort, but Miss Austen writes him so much more kindly and warm-hearted than he is ever portrayed on the screen. Miss Bates is toned down a bit here, which an avid reader of the book might not really notice, but she is not given enough time to really show the incessant chatterbox the character is in the book.

In the end, it would be safe to say that Marianne Dashwood would have approved of most everyone in this story. They were all played with full feeling and emotion around an old story that is made new again.

I've always wondered, though, about a couple of crucial scenes in the book and of course portrayed in all the film/TV adaptations that deal with characters complaining of the heat. They are all dressed from the toes to the gills in multiple layers, and as a person living in a part of the USA that regularly sees 100+ temps in the summertime, it does make me wonder just how "hot" the weather was supposed to be.

If you plan to watch this film (or have already watched it and are dissatisfied with it,) try to step back a bit from the Jane Austen novel as it was written (and additionally, the faithful-to-the-novel adaptation in the 1983 6-part mini-series) and try to look at it the way you would a well-written piece of fan fiction. The characters and their basic story lines remain somewhat the same: they have the same beginnings, same names and backgrounds and the same final, end-of-story resolutions, but their personalities and attitudes as well as many of the significant incidents are given a somewhat different treatment. Fanny is the most altered; she has more spunk (waaaaaaaay more spunk, possibly more than is easy to forgive for die-hard Austen fans) and Frances O'Conner is more attractive than Fanny seems to be described in the novel (or as portrayed by the actress in the mini-series.) She is also fashioned a bit as a reflection of Jane Austen herself as a writer of love stories, and even a very subjective POV of a "History of England" novel much like that actually written by Miss Austen as a teenager. Sir Thomas' character is written a little darker and of course the slavery issue becomes one of the centerpieces of the story, something that was glossed over so lightly in the novel and the mini-series that it was barely noticeable. Indeed, it may be brought too much forward to forgive for die-hard Austen fans. I will leave it to others who are better informed and educated than I am to decide whether the 1990's politically-correct ideologies of the young people in this early 19th century story seem unrealistically anachronistic.

However, as a movie by itself, viewed as "inspired by" rather than "based upon" the novel, it works very well. It is interesting and the characters and "enhanced" story lines are mostly well-thought out. Tom Bertram, Jr. is a tortured "artiste," and is not just an idle playboy, but one who is desperately trying to distract himself from the great burden of guilt he carries regarding how his family's fortune is made on the sweat, tears and broken backs of forced, slave labor. The only characters who really do remain truthful to the novel are Lady Bertram and Aunt Norris. I like that it is brought right out in the open that Lady B is a borderline alcoholic (if she hasn't actually crossed over that line.) While Edmund is portrayed still very closely to how he was originally written, he, too, is given a little more of an edge. A little side observation: Embeth Davidtz, who plays Mary Crawford, so much resembles Jackie Smith-Wood, who played the same character in the '83 mini-series that she could be Smith-Wood's daughter (or at least her much-younger sister.)

The ladies' costumes are gorgeous, the prettiest I've ever seen in any Jane Austen film/TV adaptation. If you want a real treat of the history of the ladies' costumes in nearly every, single Regency Period film/TV adaptation made in the last 40 years, check out the "Trivia" section of this title page, as well as the Trivia sections of all the title pages of all the Regency Period TV/films since about 1970. Someone went to a great deal of effort to catalog all of them in minute detail.

I'm giving the show a 5 because the medical case was interesting. Not being a physician, I have no idea how plausible it was, but to a person who knows next to nothing about real medicine, it was very original and interesting.

The "B" storyline, however, was the worst of the worst of old, tired sitcom variety. In fact, only Bill Cosby can really make comic story lines with young children work. As fabulous an actor and comedian as Hugh Laurie is, he was unable to make the "babysitting" storyline work. It was just bad and embarrassing as House and Wilson, the 2 non-fathers acting goofy and silly but not at all funny, try to hide the slightly damaged child from the unsuspecting Mom along with all the ancient and over-used poopy diaper gags. Just really stupid stuff straight out of old, '70's sitcoms. If this is the way the rest if the season is going to play out, we may be seeing the last one.

It's unfortunate that the title of the book is "Half-Blood Prince," because, really, given what the story is really about, that part was sort of a "B" story-line. The ancient textbook was important for the first potion-making scene (Harry HAD to win that Felix Felicis) but after that, it could have very easily been dropped from the storyline. Snape's original ownership of the book, his half-blood parentage, even the Sectusempra spell could all easily have been dropped to make room for more important details, since none of these figure prominently in Deathly Hallows. From the film makers' standpoint, that must have been annoying.

Like all the films, important details were disastrously dropped from this one and I could hear each one shattering as it was brushed carelessly off the table. The teenybopper romance theme took soooo much more time than it should have. It needed to be there a LITTLE bit, but instead it dominated the whole picture. I liked the Quidditch, always my favorite scenes in any of the films, but it just didn't need to be there this time. YES, I know things have to be cut. I understand that it would have to be a six hour film to put it all in. But the Horcruxes were CRUCIAL and they were little more than an after-thought here. I've read the reasons why the film makers decided to cut the battle scene between the DE's and the DA at the end, but I completely disagree with those reasons. The fact that the battle is missing at the end was sad enough, but the fact that Harry was NOT immobilized at the end yet did nothing to help Dumbledore is an appalling oversight.

This is not the worst adaptation. As JUST a film, it's good. If you think of it as only "inspired by" the book instead of "based upon" it then it's much easier to forgive what's missing. If you've never read the book at all (or only read it once in '06 and don't remember most of it like my husband who I know will read this) you'll really like it a lot. I LOVE the introduction to Harry; it's completely made-up for the film but it was an inspired idea. The SFX are, of course, fantastic. The score is the very best yet; I downloaded the soundtrack from iTunes just as soon as I'd seen the film. The dialog is very good and very funny in places. Dan and Rupert Have really grown as actors and Gambon has finally aged enough to look as old as Dumbledore is supposed to be. All in all, I'm not sorry I bought the DVD.

One last thing. I can't imagine why Snape would have ever let that book out of his sight in the first place.