Emma (1996) Review

(When I say “Emma 1996,” I am referring, as you can see from the picture up above, to the Gwyneth Paltrow Emma. I suppose the People Who Make Movies were not feeling very moderate that year, since there are two 1996 movies of Emma. The other is “the brown-haired Emma,” the Kate Beckinsale Emma. But another day for that review.)

This was the first version of Emma that I watched. From my (admittedly somewhat limited) knowledge of what adaptations there were to choose from, I thought I’d probably like it best. And for a while I thought I did like it best…whether or not that opinion has changed, this review will make clear.

Gwyneth Paltrow makes a fairly good Emma. She is well-bred, snooty, arrogant, well-meaning, and manipulative…all as Emma should be. She is a bit too pouty of an Emma for my tastes, but then, I suppose Emma of the book could be interpreted as pouty, too. (This is a shallow complaint, but I didn’t care for her hair for a lot of the movie…didn’t it seem to be pulled up very tightly in many scenes?)

Jeremy Northam is also quite good as Mr. Knightley. I don’t think he’s quite the Mr. Knightley of the book…he’s too young and sly and twinkly-eyed. But he’s close. He may be the closest-to-the-book Mr. Knightley we’ve had yet. (Neither the 2009 nor the 2020 Mr. Knightleys were at all bad, but neither had quite enough gravitas, I thought.)

I like that we got to see the playfulness of his relationship with Emma in this one (something that you hardly see at ALL in the Kate Beckinsale one)…if anything, their relationship is more playful than in the book. For instance, in their fight about Harriet Smith’s refusing Robert Martin (it was a really cute touch to have their archery match correspond to their verbal match), you never felt that Mr. Knightley was really that angry in this version. In the book he definitely was.

That being said, the “badly done” scene after Emma insults Miss Bates is very well done, probably the best version of that scene. Mr. Knightley is just the right balance of angry and disappointed, and you can feel just how wretched and ashamed and uncomfortable poor Emma feels.

Toni Collette as Harriet…erm…I don’t care for. She was too silly, too comic relief, too – too – ’90s rom-com sidekick character. (And no, Jane Austen movies are not rom-coms. Not if they’re done right, anyway.) I think it’s possible that Ms. Collette could have made a good Harriet with a different script…it’s hard to know, though. Seeing how we haven’t seen her as Harriet with a different script.

I liked Alan Cumming’s Mr. Elton a lot. He wasn’t downright creepy, like some Mr. Eltons are (and which I do not like – he’s not supposed to be a total creep), but he was properly obsequious and obviously interested in the oblivious Emma. And he was just funny. He was the sort of Mr. Elton you could laugh at rather than shudder at, and I prefer that kind of Mr. Elton. That’s more in keeping with the Mr. E of the book, in my opinion.

Juliet Stevenson was also rather amusing as Mrs. Elton. Again, she was a Mrs. Elton you could laugh at rather than hate. (That being said, she was really too old for the part. But since she was good in other respects, I could overlook it.)

Something else I tend to like is when you get the feeling that the Eltons really do suit each other and are, in a way, happy together…I feel that it puts a bit of a damper on the light-heartedness of the story to have anybody marry unhappily, even Mr. Elton. And I don’t think you did get much of a sense of their being happy together in this version. But one can’t have everything.

Greta Scacchi as Mrs. Weston was perfectly fine. I have no particular complaints, but I don’t think she really stood out that much either. And I cannot for the life of me remember what Mr. Weston was like, so I don’t suppose he stood out very much either. (Now that I have refreshed my memory with pictures, I remember that he was the mustached Mr. Weston. But he did not make much of an impression beyond his facial hair.)

Polly Walker as Jane Fairfax was not quite the thing, I fear. I did like that she came across as sophisticated, since Jane is supposed to be sophisticated. But she was too old. She looked much older than Emma. Forget that, she looked older than Frank. And she didn’t get across the right vibe for Jane. She didn’t really seem reserved or repressed, and she didn’t have the sort of dignified but sweet gravitas that Jane should have. She was intense, for sure, but not in the right way. (For the record, I think that Olivia Williams in the Kate Beckinsale version is pretty much the absolute epitome of what Jane Fairfax should be, so I refer you to her.)

As for Ewan McGregor’s Frank Churchill…well, first of all. How am I supposed to take him seriously with that wig? (And believe me, it looks even worse with a hat.) Secondly, I think his character/motivations needed much more time than they were given. I never felt that I got a really good picture of his personality in this one; he was friendly and mischievous, but he didn’t get much characterization apart from that. Frank and Jane’s story in general really didn’t get enough time, to be honest.

I did like Sophie Thompson as Miss Bates. She was a little too young, perhaps, but her Miss Bates was very fluttery and well-meaning and cute and Miss Bates-y. And I loved the little motif of her always repeating the most random word from the conversation to her deaf mother. “PORK, Mother!”

I never mentioned Mr. Woodhouse, did I? Well, he wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t amazing either. Again, I don’t think you got as much of a sense of his personality as you do in other versions. (Oh, and I forgot Robert Martin! He was good. He seemed very amiable and pleasant and cheerful, which is all as Robert Martin should be.)

As for the script itself, I’m afraid it hasn’t grown on me. I am not against adding in dialogue which is not in the book per se, but in this particular case, I really didn’t like a good bit of what they added. It wasn’t horrible, but, again a lot of it really just smacked too much of a ’90s rom-com. More than once I found the dialogue a little on the cringey side. And Mr. Knightley’s proposal! It wasn’t awful…but…but…it was so much sweeter and just better sounding in the book. Why would you change it?

Although, one scene which I thought was done very well was the asking-Harriet-to-dance scene. This is by far the most subtle version of that scene – I’m not sure if you even see Mr. Knightley as he’s asking Harriet – and I am all for subtlety, so I very much liked that. Some other versions make that bit rather laughably over-the-top (okay, I’m looking at you, 2020 Emma, with your angel choirs starting up as Mr. Knightley walks across the floor to Harriet). And, as aforementioned, Mr. Knightley’s scolding of Emma at Box Hill was very well done indeed. 

Oh, but what was up with that scene transition they kept using in which they would have one character in the middle of a sentence, then the scene would switch and either that character or another character would finish the sentence? It would have been fine if they did it just a few times, but as the film went on they kept doing and kept doing it and it got A Bit Much.

So, my overall verdict: Not bad. I like many things about it. It has my favorite Mr. Knightley and possibly my favorite Emma (I waver on that), but it isn’t a perfect adaptation by any means, and I’m afraid it’s no longer my favorite version of Emma.

Have you seen Emma (1996)? What do you think is the best version of Emma? Do you agree that Emma has weird hairstyles in this version? (Perhaps they’re an Irish fashion…eh, Frank?)