Emily Parent Guide

The Brontë sisters have always been one of the great mysteries of English literature. How did three young women with sheltered lives in a Yorkshire parsonage manage to write some of the most passionate literature of the 19^th century? With Emily, director Frances O’Connor tries to explain how the shy, socially averse middle Brontë sister became the author of Wuthering Heights, a novel best known for its wild, untamed emotion.

Emily Brontë, as portrayed by Emma Mackey, is restless, angry, and defiant, trapped by a culture that represses female ambition. Desires that are normal in our era – self-expression, career development, and charting one’s own path – are seen as rebellious and unwomanly in her day. She’s also constrained by the dynamics in her family. Her clergyman father prefers her successful older sister, Charlotte, and her adored brother, Branwell is drinking himself to death. The teaching career that has been arranged for Emily collapses under her introversion and social anxiety. When all feels lost, Emily finds release through her pen.

Literature fans need to be aware that Emily is a highly fictionalized biopic. A tortured love story of dubious historicity dominates the plot (and introduces unnecessary sex and nudity). The script also features complex sibling relationships. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne are obviously devoted to one another and their ne’er-do-well brother, Branwell, but their insight into each other gives them power to wound, which they do to great effect. The web of emotions that enmeshes the residents of the Haworth parsonage doesn’t just encourage ambition; it also throttles dreams.

The film’s fevered emotional climate is skillfully brought to the screen by the cast. Emma Mackey spends a lot of time glaring at the camera, but she manages to exude a sense of restrained rebellion under a mask of tenuous propriety. Fionn Whithead brings brother Branwell to life in his weakness, despair, and selfish affection for his sisters. The handsome curate, William Weightman, is given plenty of conflicted desires by a moody Oliver Jackson-Cohen. Throughout the film, the actors’ fine performances are routinely sabotaged by what is one of the most annoying soundtracks I’ve ever heard. Intrusive and loud, the soundscape often replaces dialogue, to the detriment of the story.

The tale of the Brontë sisters is prime fodder for drama – the isolation, the restrained emotion, the family tragedy, the unexpected literary success. Reserved Emily, in particular, intrigues readers with the undisciplined passion of her immortal novel. Ms. O’Connor tries to find the source of that emotion in Emily’s life and creates an affair and some casual heroin use to build what she sees as a suitable backstory. What she creates instead is pure Victorian melodrama: it’s serviceable enough as a period film but it feels unconvincing for any serious reader of Emily Brontë’s unearthly tale.