Emma Parent Guide

Emma Woodhouse (Gwyneth Paltrow) is “handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition.” So begins Jane Austen’s novel about one of her most complex characters, a woman whose determination to meddle in the lives of everyone around her, when coupled with her willful blindness to her own motivations, leads to heartache, hilarity, and the predetermined happy ending.

Fancying herself a matchmaker after the marriage of her governess turned companion (Greta Scacchi playing Mrs. Weston), Emma decides to take a boarding student at the local school under her wing and groom her for a grand marriage. But Emma’s brother-in-law, George Knightley (Jeremy Northam), disapproves of Emma’s plans for little Harriet Smith (Toni Collette). Throw into the mix an arrogant vicar, a social climbing bride, a perplexing visitor, and a reserved gentlewoman, and Emma’s best laid plans soon disintegrate into comic mayhem.

Emma is one of Jane Austen’s most intricate plots and adapting it for the big screen can easily go awry. Luckily, director Douglas McGrath has done a fine job getting the critical elements of the story on screen without losing Austen’s delicious sense of irony. He is aided by performances that are almost uniformly charming: Gwyneth Paltrow as the cluelessly snobbish but well intentioned heiress, Jeffrey Northam as the emotionally restrained gentleman, and James Cosmo as Emma’s hypochondriac father. The weak spot in this production is sadly Toni Collette as Harriet Smith. It’s not Collette’s performance that’s the problem; it’s just that she appears too mature to be playing an impressionable teenage ingenue. Collette has an aura of brisk competence that does not jibe with the clueless Harriet Smith. Luckily, even this poor bit of casting can’t sink the buoyant plot. Emma’s story zips along, moving briskly on tides of misadventure, comedy, and laughter.

Fans of romantic comedies who want to pass their fondness on to another generation need not worry about content issues in Emma. There is some mild kissing and light social drinking. But none of that detracts from the main messages of the film: the importance of doing the right thing even when it’s hard, the value of family relationships, the dangers of judging by appearances, and the need to treat everyone with respect. When these themes are packaged up with an entertaining plot, lush English landscapes, even more charming English accents, glorious costumes, and lots of humor, this is a film that’s not to be missed by fans of period drama and anyone else who wants to spend a fun two hours contemplating the folly of clueless good intentions.