I’ll admit that at first I wasn’t sure what I felt about this BBC mini-series, scripted by Sandy Welch. But now, after seeing all four episodes, I am well and truly won over – and looking forward to watching the whole thing again. I’d just like to know whether the region 2 DVD will have any special features, such as a commentary, behind-the-scenes film etc – Amazon doesn’t give any information on this, but does say it is all on one DVD, which makes me fear that perhaps there won’t be room for any extras.
Something I have enjoyed as the series developed is seeing the contrast in acting styles between Romola Garai as Emma and Jonny Lee Miller as Mr Knightley. Garai’s face and voice are always very expressive, vividly putting across what she is feeling or thinking at any given moment. By contrast, through most of the series there has been something deliberately understated and buttoned up about Miller – his body language and expressions are much quieter than Garai’s, and you often have to watch closely to see a fleeting glimpse of emotion before it is hidden again.
Tamsin Greig and Jonny Lee Miller as Miss Bates and Mr Knightley at Box Hill
That contrast of styles perhaps reaches its climax in this final episode, in the trip to Box Hill – where Emma, encouraged by an increasingly reckless Frank Churchill (Rupert Evans) puts on a flirtatious, colourful show of enjoying herself in the sunshine – while Mr Knightley watches silently, with just a slight frown or bitten lip showing his disapproval. Watching this scene, it struck me how the people doing all the talking, Frank and Emma, are making a parade of fake emotions – while Mr Knightley and Jane Fairfax (Laura Pyper) say almost nothing and try to hide what they are really feeling. This whole scene seems very well done to me in this production, helped by the clearly glorious sunshine – unfortunately not so much in evidence in the previous outing to Donwell, which is supposed to take place on an equally hot day.
Emma’s rude comment to Miss Bates (Tamsin Greig) at Box Hill seems just right to me in this version – the way she says it almost before she has realised, and doesn’t at first fully recognise what she has done, continuing to laugh and joke in the next minute or so. Mr Knightley’s upbraiding of her afterwards is powerful, feeling rawer than their arguments earlier about Harriet. If the dance scene in the previous episode showed one side of their falling in love, then this bitter short argument shows the other side – how much they both care what the other one thinks.
Romola Garai and Rupert Evans as Emma and Frank
I was slightly disappointed that we don’t see more of Miss Bates’ reaction to the cutting words from Emma – after a brief comment she disappears for a walk with the Eltons, who seem a bit too subdued in this episode, if still spiteful. It’s also a shame that we never really have a long enough speech from Miss Bates, in any of the four episodes, to get the full comic and yet poignant flavour of the character as Austen created her – Greig gives a fine performance in the part, but I wish Welch had let her rattle on for a little longer occasionally!
I also think that Jane Fairfax is kept in the background too much in this version, perhaps because of lack of time in just four episodes rather than the six which some older Austen adaptations had. This episode does give her a chance to step out of the shadows more and give a feeling of what the character is suffering, with the powerful short scene at Donwell where she tells Emma of her “weariness in spirit” before setting off to walk home in the heat – but most of the time she is kept rather shadowy and at a distance.
The proposal scene
Since rereading Emma to compare with the production, I’ve realised that the scenes and conversations are much closer to the novel than I realised at first, except for the updating of the language. In this episode, one gesture kept the same as in the book is Mr Knightley’s farewell to Emma before leaving for London, where he seems as if he is going to kiss her hand after hearing that she has been to visit Miss Bates – but then doesn’t raise the hand to his lips after all, just holds it for a minute. This is a good contrast with an earlier scene where Frank flamboyantly kissed Emma’s hand in order to torment the watching Jane.
For me, though, the best part of this episode is the proposal scene, which sticks fairly close to the wording in the book, and at last lets Mr Knightley really show his emotions, letting his mask slip. Both Garai and Miller play this beautifully. It seems as if Mr Knightley has become less certain of himself all through the series, after being apparently too hectoring and overbearing in the first episode – almost as if he has become younger, while Emma has become older. I liked the physical gesture where Mr Knightley asks Emma what she thinks about his proposal, and her answer is to put a hand on each side of his face – he visibly stops holding his breath and relaxes at her touch.
At times I think this production might spell things out a bit too much, and that happens again in this episode where Mr Woodhouse (Michael Gambon) talks to Emma about his anxiety that something will happen if members of his family take risks such as travelling. Welch’s conception of his character, as nervous rather than tyrannical, has already been made clear and I don’t think this extra explanation is really necessary – but this scene does give Michael Gambon a chance to give the character a little more depth.
Instead of showing us Emma and Mr Knightley’s wedding at the end, this version shows the couple setting off on honeymoon (with John and Isabella temporarily installed to protect Mr Woodhouse and his chickens!) I loved the revelation that the couple are going to the seaside, after all the mentions earlier of Emma never having seen the sea – and the final glimpse of the couple standing hand in hand at the top of Beachy Head.
Emma and Mr Knightley at the seaside
Phew! I love your review!!! I agree with every single word, especially this : “almost as if he has become younger, while Emma has become older. I liked the physical gesture where Mr Knightley asks Emma what she thinks about his proposal, and her answer is to put a hand on each side of his face – he visibly stops holding his breath and relaxes at her touch”.
I loved this adaptation and watched and re-watched some scenes … let’s say … several times.
Thank you, Judy. I was waiting for this and I’m so glad you’ve posted it. Off to link it to my blog.
Thank you, Maria – I watched some scenes several times too, especially the dancing in episode three! I forgot to say in my review that I loved the music – I hadn’t heard of Samuel Sim, who wrote the series’ original music, but I hope to hear of him again!
Judy,
I love your review, I watched this last instalment yesterday (I think I will be watching it again tomorrow) I only want to point out that perhaps Jane Fairfax is “most of the time she is kept rather shadowy and at a distance” on purpose.
I’m also a new believer and it’s mainly through Jonny Lee Miller’s performance, his eyes during the ball scene (looking at Emma from a distance and then dancing with her, he briefly blinks as if he doesn’t want to show too much emotion)
The proposal was a beautiful scene and you get to see the 2 characters thinking they have no chance and trying to overcome their thoughts for the sake of the other (esp. Emma)
Thanks very much, Ailatan – I do agree Jane Fairfax has to be kept at a distance a lot of the time, but I would have liked to see the character given a chance to break through that later on. I definitely agree with you that Miller was excellent in the ball scene – I like your comment about him blinking to hide the emotion.
Wonderful review – your description of the proposal is crystal clear! All in all, I think this wasn’t a flawless production at all – but it is a lovely one that has captured my heart. I too hope for a good special features DVD set – and the Sense and Sensibility one had commentaries and interviews on one disc, so I’d say it’s not impossible.
I do hope you are right about the special features – it strikes me that ‘Sense and Sensibility’ was three episodes and this series was four, so it might be a bit more of a squeeze, but fingers crossed! Thank you so much for all your comments and encouragement in writing about this series.
Oh, I can’t hardly wait for this to come to the U.S.!!!! I have been a Jonny Lee Miller fan for nine years and a Jane Austen fan forever! have really enjoyed your reviews of “Emma”. Thank you!
Thanks, Pam – I want to see more of Jonny Lee Miller’s work after this mini-series.
I enjoyed reading this and look forward to seeing the rest of the mini-series quickly and then going over it more slowly.
Davies 1996 Emma scanted Miss Bates (Jane wasn’t given enough but Olivia Williams did make her presence felt), and the 1996 Miramax was similar (only in reverse it was Sophie Thompson who managed to make herself felt as shattered and hurt). There’s a repeated temptation which seems irresistible to prefer the comic Harriet story to the more implicitly painful (and left enigmatic) Jane and Frank one; also Miss Bates is supposed to be old, a no no.
Ellen
I must admit that I have the two 1990s versions hopelessly muddled up together in my mind, but I do remember being moved by Olivia Williams in one and Sophie Thompson in the other. Hoping to watch the older adaptations again in the next couple of weeks while this one is still fresh in my mind to compare. Thank you for this, Ellen.
My daughter, Izzy, is back to writing fiction where she “channels” Austen’s characters. She recently wrote one where Mr Knightley variant is uncannily like Jonny Lee Miller’s interpretation — and of further interest to me — we are supposed to dislike him.
Mr Knightley as originally conceived by Austen is a problem for contemporary young women, and, to do her credit, Welch returns to him.
On one disk sets: I recently bought myself (broke down) and got the American DVD of S&S — so I could show it to my classes where you must have Region 1 DVDs. Everything was on the one disk that is on the British DVD (features, interviews, all). Ditto for a recent reprint of the 1995 S&S. The American version of the 2008 S&S by Davies did include a second disk: Miss Austen regrets! What a bonus.
Ellen
Thank you, Ellen – I really hope you are right and that the DVD does have some special features, as I think behind-the-scenes featurettes, commentary etc can add so much to appreciation of a mini-series. Also how lovely that you got Miss Austen Regrets as a bonus disc!
Hi everyone – just a quick question – does anyone know how to contact the screenwriter of this amazing version of Emma , Sandy Welch, I can’t seem to find any address or email on the internet anywhere..or a website even. Does anyone have any ideas?
Also any suggestions greatly appreciated – I am wanted to forward an idea to screenwriters of period/historical dramas for something that I have read which I would love to be adapted into a film – any screenwriter suggestions? Contact details?
Many thanks x
Hi Claire, afraid I can’t be of much help – I don’t think Sandy Welch has a website, so all I could suggest is to write care of the BBC and hope they will forward a letter. Judy
PBS is hosting a Q&A with Sandy Welch – so you can ask your questions on their forum! http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?p=691645#691645
Thanks for posting about the PBS forum, Ian – much appreciated.
Now I have Parts 1-4 through and 1-3 two times. I like it yet more, and now see it as an interesting attempt to do something new, to break away again towards a new mood — it’s more than a return to an older view of the novel.
I’ll go backwards and first deal with what I know are a barrage of complaints and vitriolic ridicule – though mostly from British newspapers where it’s to the advantage of a journalist to be over-the-top sarky (gets attention, makes careers &c&c). First or 1) Americans who see it like it much much better; and a few British blogs have liked it very much indeed (Like this one)
The British journalists love to despise mini-series of this type. But beyond de-sexing Austen once again (so we are back say to “Speaking of Jane Austen” and the film like this recently was _Cranford_), it also does something at the same time which goes with that: common consensus has it the 1990s films were an “answer” to the misogyny and sexuality of films like _Basic Instinct_ and pop commercial films. In _Basic instint_ and other films (Fatal Attraction) we are presented with masochistic and super-sexualized monster femme fatales, all of whom are eager to jump to any man’s snapping fingers (someimes for revenge, but more often in an abject state). By constrast, the 1990s films gave us strong women in charge, if with low-cut dresses, still standing there with strong self-esteem, and demanding decent respect, with good and idealized male types. These 19090s films were a sort of pop film feminism. Come the 2008-9 set and we have abject weeping women, Bronte stuff.
Now in this return, it seems to me Welch is simply ignoring the world around her in the way of that new Cranford, but worse — Mr Knightley controls Emma; he really dominates; it’s he who has flashbacks and she is presented as a sort of jerk — childlike. I loved part 4 but it is so designed that Mr Knightley really rescues Emma and is the strong one in the relationship — after all as he says in the book he’s 13 years older. Claudia Johnson, has this idea of Emma as “reigning” at the end of the novel, well not in this one. Mr Knightley takes her to the sea. It can grate too because it’s elistist in the old fashioned way British people don’t like — or most don’t who fancy themselves liberal — it ignores pop culture altogether.
Finally like the 1940 film and the 2005, 2007-8 set, it uses modern language in lieu of Austen. There really is a strong return to turning Austen’s words and phrases into modern idiolects. I like the way Welch does it — it’s not vulgar and there’s enough left, as also Davies.
So what’s good? It gives a new interpretation that makes sense and leads you to reread the book. It opens with Jane, Frank, and Emma as babies. Why? Well in Part 4 it’s brought home to us how one of the attractions between Jane and Frank is they both come from Highbury and were both displaced children. It’s not overt in Austen, but it is there.
The relationship between Emma and Mr Woodhouse is given an new spin which also coheres with the book — not him as tyrant or him as innocent child, but them as having an uneasy compromise, with both sacrificing a lot, more her than him. The final episode instead of emphazing the joke of the chicken house as what allows Knightley and Emma to marry takes Mr Woodhouse objections seriously (as does the 72 film at first). He makes a real argument if paranoid or unreal and the context of the film provides an answer.
Emma and Mr Knightley are reseen. Like the 72 film there are long dialogues between them. Yes he’s stronger — and older too. She’s childlike and that must grate (see below) but her malice and spite and other qualities are made more believable while not overdone. In the end he takes her to the sea (!) instead of a wedding. I found startlingly good the alphabet scene and their quarrel afterwards (the first of these Emmas to do that one). Also the Miss Bates insult was treated in accordance with those critics who say we are overdoing it when we say Emma did something so spectacularly bad. The insult comes out more naturally, less emphatic, Miss Bates is as hurt, but Emma makes her irritation understandable then and before; what’d more interesting is Emma’s visit the next day produces a painful scene where Miss Bate’s dependency and desperation for Jane become the center of what Emma hurt and that makes more sense as well as gives Emma’s visit and her attempts to make up to Jane more play. They are the center of the film (as they were in 72) only differently interpreted — and it should make you go back to the book :)
It’s uneven at times: too much comedy at first with too quick wrenched scenes where caricarture is sometimes resorted to (especially for Harriet and Mr Elton); as it went along the scenes became more continuous psychologically and were very absorbing — especailly the set-tos between Knighthley and Emma. We see their relationship develop over 4 episodes.
A subtheme about who dominates who emerges — which comes from the books and Mrs Elton’s unpleasantness makes a new kind of perspective. She bullies Elton (we see he was susceptible to this by his character).
Jane is newly seen in interesting ways; her comment about slavery comes out of her character which is deeply unhappy and she has a good speech (modernized from Austen) about how she has been ill for a long time — talking to Emma explaining why she is leaving Donwell Abbey. She’s rightly we see someone who is depressed from her circumstances.
Miss Bates is too scanted as I said before but in the fourth episode the actress comes into her own.
Well I mean to watch it again (all four). This is very much in the 1970s-80s mode in that the scenes are subtle, nothing broad, and to understand the different nuances you need to rewatch, maybe take down dialogue and then rereading the book becomes rewarding as they shed light on one another.
Ellen
Very nice review! I do wonder about the seeming displacement in time – word on the net is that the BBC commissioned the Emma script from Welch in 1996, but killed the project after Davies and McGrath produced their own with ITV/Meridien and Miramax. Sandy Welch is doing a Q&A in the upcoming week, I think, and I’ve submitted a question about when the script was written that I really hope gets picked to be answered. Your comments about Mr. Woodhouse and Emma’s relationship are extremely insightful – I like them a lot, as well as the note about Welch’s (and Davies’) treatment of Austen’s language. Rereading the book, I found that there is a lot of updating – but a lot less that I expected, which was a nice surprise.
Just a couple of fact notes: Emma’s wedding trip to the sea is in the last chapter of the book: “They had determined that their marriage ought to be concluded while John and Isabella were still at Hartfield, to allow them the fortnight’s absence in a tour to the sea-side, which was the plan.” George Knightley is 16 years older than Emma, rather than 13. And Davies does included the letter game with “Blunder” and “Dixon” – it’s at the beginning of the Box Hill scene, and Mr. Knightley voices his concerns about Frank and Jane’s attachments in that scene too – but it’s very brief.
Many thanks for posting your thoughts after seeing all four episodes, Ellen – sorry to be a little slow in replying but I’ve been out and about today.:) I also especially appreciated your comments on Mr Woodhouse’s relationship with Emma, and I like your thought about Jane’s comment about slavery springing out of her character and her suffering. I will very much look forward to reading your full blog about this adaptation.
Also thanks to Ian – I’d completely missed the fact that the journey to the seaside is in the novel, even though I’ve just reread it! I’m still hoping to watch and compare the other adaptations, but time has been in short supply, so to speak, and I haven’t got to them yet.
Hi Judy and everyone!
I’m sorry for responding this late but tonight the last episode of Emma was broadcasted here in Holland^^. I really loved to watch it and it made me want to read this Jane Austen book, which I haven’t read yet. What I’d like to say is that Johnny Lee Miller’s adaption of Mr Knightley reminded me so much of Colin Firth as Mr Darcy! He totally shares that image with him of the man who wants to hide his secret feelings for the heroine..
I did think the actors were very good in this adaption! I already knew Cristina Cole from Jane Eyre and I thought she was quite brilliant at being very annoying!:P And Romola Garai as Emma and Jonny Lee Miller were very convincing, just like you remarked. I do think it’s a shame I’ve seen the last episode now.. it was great to look forward to the next one!
Anyway, I enjoyed reading your review, it was very good!
Kind regards from Holland
Thank you for the kind comments, Yv, and glad to hear the series has now been broadcast in the Netherlands – I also thought the actors were very good, and enjoyed looking forward to each episode. I’m sure you will enjoy reading the novel. Thanks again!
I agree with everything in this review, just fantastic! I am currently working on an assignment in which i have to write a film review. Of course i chose ‘Emma’. I think what appeals to me most about ‘Emma’ is that unlike many other Jane Austen stories, it is believable. After all there is nothing extraordinary about a young woman falling in love with an old friend is there? As for Jonny Lee Millar he plays Mr Knightly brilliantly. In Pride and Prejudice we have Mr Darcy with the smouldering eyes and rugged looks, one of the most well known Jane Austen characters. Mr Knightly is not like this and i am glad. He wins us all over with his quietness and charm. Nice to see so many people are fans of this too! Thank you.
Thank you very much, Louise, and hope the assignment goes well.:)
Emma has finally arrived in the States. I love this version, and I enjoyed your review.
I’m a fan of British film, especially costume dramas, and I thought I was familiar with all the usual British “characters,” but the acting of Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller were a revelation to me. Head and shoulders above the previous film versions I’ve seen, with Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Beckinsale as Emma; and Jeremy Northam and Mark Strong as Mr. Knightley.
Thanks for the kind comments on my review, and glad to hear you loved this version too. I also liked Garai and Miller very much, as you’ll have gathered, though I did like the older Davies version too. I’m not so keen on the McGrath version, though I do like Jeremy Northam as Mr Knightley – that’s one I haven’t got round to writing about yet, but might do in the future.
Hi everyone! I’m an actress and I have a passion for period dramas, I would love for you to watch my showreel on youtube & comment :-) There are some scenes from Fiona Mountain’s historical novel ‘Lady of the Butterflies’. I would love to know what you think…
http://www.youtube.com/user/actressTiffanyHaynes
Hi Tiffany, not sure if many people will see this here , but I’ve just watched your showreel and enjoyed it – wishing you all the best with your career.
“By contrast, through most of the series there has been something deliberately understated and buttoned up about Miller – his body language and expressions are much quieter than Garai’s, and you often have to watch closely to see a fleeting glimpse of emotion before it is hidden again.”
I suspect that is Jonny Lee Miller’s acting style. Your comments reminded me of his performance in the 1996 prequel to “LONESOME DOVE” – “DEAD MAN’S WALK”. His portrayal of Woodrow Call struck me as understated and emotional as Tommy Lee Jones’ portrayal in the 1989 miniseries.