More reviews and all things Emily today.
The Washington Post gives it 3 stars out of 4.
Played by Emma Mackey (“Sex Education”) with a beguiling combination of self-conscious reserve and feral intensity, O’Connor’s enigmatic heroine isn’t the reclusive, neurasthenic creature concocted by popular imagination (with the help of her older sister Charlotte, who took charge of the narrative when Emily died in 1848 at age 30). Here, O’Connor takes what little we reliably know about Emily’s life as the daughter of a Yorkshire clergyman and self-effacing sister to three artistically expressive siblings, and fleshes it out with generous helpings of speculation and outright fiction, using Brontë's one and only novel, “Wuthering Heights,” as a lens on her own inner wildness and longing. [...]
O’Connor leans heavily into that fusing of the inner and natural worlds: There’s lots of twirling about in “Emily,” often amid drenching rainstorms while cavorting on those aforementioned dales. But for the sometimes hysterically pitched emotion of the movie — especially when the soaring choral musical score kicks in — “Emily” is at its best when it quiets down, allowing viewers to see Emily’s world as she might have perceived it. [...]
Did it happen that way? The factual particulars are less interesting to O’Connor than the mystical gifts of her protagonist, whose native sensitivity tips into outright possession in one of “Emily’s” most powerfully effective scenes, when Emily conjures her late mother during an impromptu séance. What begins as after-dinner entertainment takes on the Gothically supernatural contours of “Wuthering Heights” itself, just as Emily’s choice to tattoo the words “Freedom in thought” on her inner arm presages the ungovernable intelligence of Cathy, her creation and, by O’Connor’s lights, her literary doppelganger.
Dreamy and haunted, a product of hyper-dramatic atmosphere as much as the social and family dynamics of her time, the Emily of O’Connor’s telling emerges as a figure with spirit, magnetism and mystery. “Emily” is less a portrait of an artist as a young woman than the finding and freeing of a rebel heart. The movie may or may not be entirely true to Brontë, but it is surpassingly, and often deliciously, Brontë-esque. (Ann Hornaday)
Emily isn’t a straight biopic but, at its best, a suggestive and enjoyable exploration of a young, imaginative mind and its troubles — Emily is, from the start of the movie, a woman brushing up against the limits of decorum, increasingly so as the myth-building, wandering mind that sustained her and her three siblings in childhood persists, for Emily, into adulthood, when her siblings seem for the most part to be moving on to finer things, like love and their hunger for occupation.
Emma Mackey (of Sex Education fame) plays Emily, and from merely the way she presents herself relative to her siblings — staring at her feet around others, with her long brown hair hanging down into her face in a gesture that comes off as both extraordinarily shy and slightly mischievous — she sets herself apart. This is one of those stories about a woman genius whose will and imagination are mitigated and contained by her era. She is fitful and idiosyncratic, to be sure, uncontrollable in her breaking of rules that feel arbitrary, not because she intends to be defiant, but because she is who she is. The movie begins with Emily in the throes of death (from tuberculosis) and leaps backward to trace the secrets and desires that are at risk of dying with her. [...]
But Emily cannot be reduced to this titillating analog for Heathcliff and Cathy, or really to any one relationship in Emily’s life. Its strength is in finding ways to provide a fuller portrait, sneaking in telling and evocative details here and there that merge the pure satisfaction of good drama with the more intellectual pleasure of watching a story avoid the usual traps. The movie’s handheld camerawork is delicate, like the entire movie, going out of its way to capture the unspoken essences of every conversation, wielding the power of a glance when the story needs it. It’s a good movie about a woman before her time that doesn’t work backward from our knowledge that she’s an icon toward the details that would justify her reputation. This movie plays its hand differently. It feels more like an effort to make us curious about this woman, whether or not we know or care who she is. And from the moment we see her, we are indeed inclined to be curious. That’s how you know it works. (K. Austin Collins)
The author of Wuthering Heights, who died at the age of 30, is the most mysterious of the Brontë sisters, leaving little behind but the one (canonical) novel and the poems she contributed to a sororal anthology. This has given writer-director Frances O’Connor the freedom to speculate, resulting in a drama that aspires to the moody romanticism of Wuthering Heights and benefits from a captivating performance by Emma Mackey (Sex Education) in the title role.
Unlike Dickinson, which freely and hilariously inserted modern slang and attitudes while riffing on Emily Dickinson’s life and work, Emily plays things straight, which frankly makes it difficult for those of us not schooled in the biographical facts to tell which parts are speculative and which aren’t. It seems as if the biggest leaps O’Connor takes involve Emily’s romantic relationship with her curate father’s assistant William Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and her intense sibling bond with her dissolute brother Branwell (Fionn Whitehead). The thrust is that these two must have largely inspired the characters of Edgar and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights.
Emily herself is a misfit, chafing against the restrictions of her time and place, but most comfortable when spinning stories with her sisters or, as in the film’s most revealing scene, playing games of masquerade. Mackey is well-cast, bringing a wide-eyed intensity and a smirking derision to Emily’s generally awkward interactions with the wider world.
As an effort to interrogate the story of one of English literature’s most enigmatic authors, Emily will be of most interest to those with a preconceived image of its subject. As an effort to capture the sorts of pressures and frustrations faced by a woman bursting with creativity in the Victorian era, it paints a vivid picture. (Marc Mohan)
Frances O’Connor’s fictionalized portrait of real-life literary legend and “Wuthering Heights” author Emily Brontë avoids the stoic, still-life cinematic portrait treatment. For her feature directorial debut, O’Connor puts her faith not in fact-checking Emily Brontë’s complicated history but in her own instincts and insights as screenwriter/director and established actor (she was terrific as Fanny Price in 1999’s “Mansfield Park,” a Jane Austen adaptation). That artistic license serves the film and its eccentric central character — a mid-19th-century social misfit with an observant eye — tremendously well.
Infused with wit, rounds of intoxicating Gothic imagery (kudos to director of photography Nanu Segal) and an ethereal performance from Emma Mackey (Netflix’s “Sex Education”) this “Emily” covers what shaped and inspired Brontë’s lone work of creative genius. It also does a convincing job of illustrating how out-of-place Emily was in a world that would prefer to stifle such an independent-minded artist.
O’Connor conveys Emily’s restless inner and outer worlds — including a romance with a strapping curate (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). She also brings to life the entire complicated Brontë bunch: Emily’s more tradition-bound but talented sisters — Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling), author of “Jane Eyre,” and Anne (Amelia Gething), author of “Angus Grey.” (sic) All are still caught up in mourning the loss of their mum, but it is their impetuous brother Branwell Brontë (Fionn Whitehead), a consistent and charismatic troublemaker who brings them both joy and grief, and even literary inspiration.
For all these reasons, “Emily” is a bit of a radical period piece unto itself, a film that doesn’t want to be bound — much like its central character — to one genre or one overall conceit. And that lifts “Emily” far above other recent, more staid and comfortable “biopics.” (Randy Myers)
Emily is a well acted and often captivating film, though at least a passing familiarity with Brontë’s masterpiece makes a difference in appreciating Writer/Director Frances O’Connor’s vision. The accomplished actress, best known for Mansfield Park and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, makes an impressive auteur debut. Wheremany might have made the mistake of overplaying the gothic atmosphere of the story, O’Connor strikes a balance and portrays Emily’s formative experiences without going to the hammy extremes. O’Connor doesn’t underestimate what an interesting person Brontëmust have been but avoids making her life as colorfully melodramatic as the fiction she wrote.
Mackey is wonderful in the title role, infusing Emily with a sense of mirth, playfulness and stubborn defiance that makes us love her and ache with her during her most difficult times. Whitehead’s boyish charms are perfectly suited to the character of Branwell, and O’Connor nicely captures the closeness between the brother and sister that is thought to have influenced the dynamic between the younger Cathy and Heathcliff. Dowling’s Charlotte is the most interesting character, and her interplay with Mackey is involving, frustrating.
Emily is largely a film for fans of literature and costume drama, but it’s successful enough on that level to constitute one of the strongest mainstream releases of the year up to this point. Emily is an intelligent, insightful extrapolation of the life of an extraordinary artist, and it’s likely to be a significant chapter in the careers of both its director and its star. (Patrick Gibbs)
While Emily is not entirely fanciful, O’Connor’s film is clearly an exercise in speculative fiction. What if, instead of being inspired by gothic and romantic literature that she and her sisters devoured from childhood, Emily Brontë based her famous novel on her lived experience?
Thus we have O’Connor’s version of Emily, played by the darkly beautiful French-English actress Emma Mackey (Netflix’s Sex Education, Death on the Nile). Here, she is a rebellious young woman ahead of her time, involved in a passionate transgressive love affair, having supernatural experiences, struggling with patriarchal rules, grief, trauma and sibling rivalry. [...]
From the outset, O’Connor makes no secret of her revisionist approach. As the film begins, with Emily’s death from tuberculosis at the age of 30, the camera pans to copies of her newly published novel with her name proudly written under the title. (As O’Connor no doubt knows that the book was first published under the pen name, Ellis Bell.)
No matter — moods are more important than historical accuracy or scene-setting here. Cinematographer Nanu Segal, shooting on the moors near the Brontë home in Haworth in West Yorkshire, avoids coffee table pretty framing, preferring dim naturally lit interiors and rushing handheld outdoor shots to suggest emotional urgency. Similarly, Abel Korzeniowski’s classically styled score ranges from moody piano arpeggios to manic violins. [...]
Less persuasive is the rivalry depicted between the wild Emily and the more extroverted and pragmatic Charlotte who, in real life, survived all of her siblings before dying in pregnancy at 38. She is portrayed here as prudish, scolding, and envious of Emily’s genius, which seems unfair.
The basis of this comes from Brontë biographers who note that, following, Emily and Anne’s deaths, Charlotte sanitized her sisters’ controversial reputations by portraying them as unworldly and naïve. (There’s also a persistent rumour that she destroyed the unfinished manuscript for Emily’s second novel.) But it goes too far to suggest that the author of Jane Eyre, a book never mentioned here, was the work of a second-rate, convention-bound talent.
Overall, O’Connor’s revisionist depiction of Emily Brontë is a tantalizingly credible exercise in world-building thanks to the director’s commitment to her concept, and on a scene-by-scene basis by Mackey’s brooding performance.
She communicates a kind of awkward physicality of someone caught up in their inner life, and suggests how Brontë’s small, close circle of relationships may have found their way into her gigantic work of fiction. (Liam Lacey)
Citing their history, O’Connor explained, “There was a period of time where it was Brantwell, Emily and Weightman kicking around the parsonage for a couple of years. I just thought, ‘Well what happens?’ I don’t think she had an affair, but she might have been watching these guys in terms of prototypes for Heathcliff and Edgar.
“Weightman was a real person. He was an incredible flirt. Everybody fell in love with him,” she added. “He died when Emily went away to Brussels. For my story, it’s important that she connects to someone on her journey to become who she is.
“And for her to fall in love with the patriarchy and the patriarchy to reject her and say, ‘There’s something ungodly about you!’ is just very helpful for what I want to say in the film.” (Stephen Schaefer)
How much of the Brontë sisters did you know about before you got cast?
I knew who they were. I knew the books that they'd written. I'd read some of them when I was younger. So I had a bit of context, but I discovered most of what I needed to know through reading the biographies and doing the research when I got offered the part. I watched all of the documentaries I possibly could, and all the films that had been made, and all the adaptations that had been made of the said books.
This film isn't a faithful retelling of Emily's life. It fictionalizes events in order for us to imagine what might have inspired her real-life work. Did you find the lack of restriction to historical accuracy to be creatively freeing? Or does it maybe pose its own challenges?
It poses challenges. I got offered the part a year and a bit before we actually started shooting, so I went in there pretty fresh. When I started researching and realized that there were a lot of historical discrepancies and a lot of things weren't factual, I sort of had to re-habituate my preconceptions of what the Brontës' story was and what Emily's story was. I'm a little more classical. I think I'd thought it was a biopic, and then when I got in there, it wasn't. In the end, I had to kind of fight against my own preconceptions of what I thought I was doing.
There's a different function of a creative story versus a documentary, even if some Brontë purists might be upset about the fudging of the timeline.
Yeah, but, like, who cares? I get it. I mean, I was the same in the beginning, but in the end, it's, like, "It's just a story. Can we all just get over ourselves?" The problem is if it was ever pitched and sold as a biopic, that would be the problem. It's not a documentary, basically. If you wanna watch a documentary about the Brontës, there are loads and they're great. But this is a story and an interpretation. You just kind of have to roll with it and let it happen to you and just enjoy it in all of its imperfections and all the different rhythms and all of the broad strokes. You need to just follow it. That's the way you can enjoy it.
The end result I'm quite happy with. It feels like it's not stuck in a specific structure or a specific kind of filmic rule system, which I like. I like that we pretty quickly, from the mask scene onwards, blur those boundaries quite intensely and play with the genre a little bit, go towards the more the supernatural side. (Chelsey Sanchez)
CBC (Canada) shares on a podcast a conversation about the film with Emma Mackey from around the time it was screened at TIFF 2022.
Salmon Arm Observer reports that
Emily will close Shuswap International Film Festival on February 25.
We also have a couple of reviews of
Villette in Chicago. From
Chicago Tribune:
If there’s one thing I’d suggest for this work in progress, it would be more warmth, narrative kindness and a closer relationship with the people in the seats, the theater’s equivalent of the adoring Brontë reader.
In some ways, director Tracy Walsh’s production is a deconstruction of “Villette,” a piece of theater that certainly finds the humor in the piece and is appreciative of the wry sensibility. The intent here, I think, is to universalize the story and not worry unduly about the original cultural specifics. The cast, which includes Mi Kang (who plays Lucy), Helen Joo Lee, Mo Shipley, Debo Balogun, Renée Lockett and Ronald Román-Meléndez are all vibrant performers who maintain their own identities rather than disappearing into their Victorian characters. That’s fair enough although a tricky match in places for this particular Brontë, who was so profoundly empathetic.
No one here feels especially vulnerable to anything. So, in essence, the show concentrates on a structural critique of the situation in which Lucy finds herself and a celebration of her personal resilience. I found myself craving fewer, longer scenes, allowing the actors to dive deeper without being so interrupted by the sliding doors on Yu Shibagaki’s set, more elegant than functional. But Brontë fans will find plenty here to intrigue them. (Chris Jones)
Unfortunately, without a mad wife and other showy elements, “Villette” is more difficult to dramatize. The Lookingglass version is beautifully acted and staged, under the direction of ensemble member Tracy Walsh. But at times, it feels more like a book than a play.
Mi Kang as Lucy narrates a lot of the plot, speaking directly to the audience. With her wonderfully mobile face, Kang is able to convey Lucy’s sense of humor, along with her feelings of hurt and longing. Artistic Associate Sara Gmitter’s script is witty and brings out Brontë’s sharp observations about the narrow choices faced by Victorian women. But some parts of Lucy’s story would have been better shown, in dialogue or action, rather than explained. In the book, Lucy can be fierce—she locks a student in a closet for acting up—and goes to confession though she hates Catholicism. In the play, she mostly talks.
The wordiness of the play is reflected in the stage design by Yu Shibagaki—rooms and scenes are revealed using sliding panels decorated with Brontë’s handwriting. The stage furniture is minimal—a narrow bed, an armoire, an armchair, a bookshelf. As the feelings of the characters deepen, more of the back of the stage is revealed, with spring flowers and a wonderful display of hanging, illuminated glass bottles to represent the stars.[...]
Lucy has two romantic interests—the handsome but bland and fickle Graham (Ronald Román-Meléndez) and a fellow teacher named Paul Emanuel (Debo Balogun). Prickly and eccentric, Paul sees in Lucy a fiery spirit she can’t see in herself. In a red-velvet tasseled cap and spectacles, Balogun plays him with droll charisma, though he’s an awful prude over Lucy looking at a nude woman in a painting. A lot of what we learn about him is through Lucy’s narration. There are gaps, and we have to make imaginative leaps to fully understand his appeal.
Also excellent are Renée Lockett as Graham’s mother, a joyful woman comfortable in her own skin, who gives Ginevra a look that would wilt all her flounces if she’d only been paying attention. Helen Joo Lee as Madame Beck, the school’s owner, is icy and intimidating as a woman who has made her own way in a man’s world.
Based on a novel more people should read, “Villette” is a show worth seeing. To paraphrase Elvis, a little less explanation and a little more action would have made it better. (Mary Wisniewski)
The Point discusses the life and work of author Elizabeth Hardwick.
Hardwick had a sharp eye for the fit of pique, the minor taste or habit, that indexed a whole character. From literary reminiscences of Emily Brontë, she selected a scene where “Emily is brutally beating her dog about the eyes and face with her own fists in order to discourage him from his habit of slipping upstairs to take a nap on the clean counterpanes.” (Emily Ogden)
According to
MovieWeb, Mr Rochester (as played by Michael Fassbender in
Jane Eyre 2011) is one of the 'Most Unlikable Protagonists in Romance Movies'.
6 Edward Rochester (Jane Eyre)
Also based on a classic love story, this time by Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre is a romantic period story about a governess who falls in love with a very wealthy and flawed man, Edward Rochester. While Rochester is classically known as a beloved romantic hero (aided by the fact that he's played by Michael Fassbender in the 2011 film adaption), he can also be very unlikable too.
On that end, Rochester is moody, often very discourteous, and hides a dark secret - the fact that he pretty much keeps his ill ex-wife locked up in his estate. Despite all this, he does eventually win over the main female protagonist, Jane Eyre, albeit after a lot of complications in-between. Fassbender is magnetic here, but the character is representative of the Byronic hero as a whole — arrogant, a bit cruel, and kind of misogynistic. (Neville Naidoo)
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