A solitary man walks on streets through neighborhoods for
the simple pleasure of it. A police car accosts him and wants to know why he is
walking.
Ray Bradbury wrote The Pedestrian in 1951. He set it
a century forward from when he wrote it, but it feels eerily true today. I strongly
suggest you look it up online or find it in a collection of his short stories.
It is so short, it almost qualifies as flash fiction.
Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a twenty year-old child of privilege.
Having successfully arranged a match for her beloved governess, she now
proceeds confidently as an expert in matches. She definitely wants what is best
for her friend Harriet (Mia Goth), who is a person of low circumstances. When
Harriet receives a proposal from a farmer whom she loves, Emma steers her away
from him. She wants Harriet to marry up from her situation.
Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn), Emma’s brother-in-law, looks
askance at Emma’s presumption. He lectures her more than once that she is being
arrogant, and even has prejudices (in a positive way) about some son of privilege
whom they have never met, but who is due to visit.
Emma and Mr. Knightley keep locking horns. Is Emma doing the
right thing for Harriet? How will this turn out?
This is the third version of Emma that I’ve seen.
(Yes, Clueless starring Alicia Silverstone is a reimagining of Emma,
but it doesn’t count.) My favorite has been a 1996 version starring Kate
Beckinsale. Readers familiar with the book by Jane Austen say this is the most accurate
version, and besides, I think Kate Beckinsale is the loveliest woman in
Hollywood. I saw a different 1996 version with Gwyneth Paltrow, but hardly
remember anything about it. The one with Kate Beckinsale has the lowest
production values, but it was filmed inside real stately manors, with all the
darkness and cramped camera angles that implies. It feels authentic.
I wasn’t going to see this year’s Emma because I was
put off by the opulence of it. Jane Austen occupied the lowest rung of the upper
class, and the Kate Beckinsale version stays faithful to that. The new version
with Anya Taylor-Joy is set in a much higher level of Regency society, which
put me off.
But I saw it anyway. Yes, this is a higher strata of
society. The incredible wealth of the mansions is hard to feature. The actions
of the menservants as they obey every whim of Emma’s father look comical. And
this was the first movie I’ve seen that shows what it looks like for the nobles
to have their servants dress and undress them. (A couple of rear end scenes
were brief.)
Somehow, this year’s version won me over. Emma is usually
portrayed as an incredibly vain, arrogant woman who only changes when her folly
comes crashing down on her. In this version, there is an underlying sweetness
to her that grows, especially in her unending friendship with Harriet. In all
three versions, the dance scenes at the ball are the emotional nexus of the story.
I have to say that this year’s version had the best dance scenes I’ve seen in
any Jane Austen movie. I mean it. The best. Even better than in Pride and
Prejudice and Zombies. (Yes, that counts as a Jane Austen movie.)
So whether you’re a Jane Austen fan or not, I recommend this
most recent version.
P.S. Emma is shown playing a small piano and singing. I was
pleasantly surprised to see in the end credits that it really was Anya Taylor-Joy.
Some moron on NBC said that Seattle is a “ghost town”
because of fear of the coronavirus. A lot of us are going online to disprove
that. On Saturday, I went to the Bellevue Square mall. (Bellevue is the most
populous suburb of Seattle.)
Here we are:
I didn’t focus in any farther to avoid showing people’s faces.
Plenty of people milling around, shopping, eating in the restaurants.
I will say the janitors were visible, wiping down the
handrails and other commonly touched areas. The mall has no reason to desire
bad publicity. Here’s one of their major tenants:
As I’ve noted before, they’ve achieved a slacker kind of
cool vibe. Perhaps I should have said hipster.
