While she has revealed her desire to step away from the Sex Education series, which brought her to the attention of the general public, Emma Mackey is back in Emily on March 15. In this biopic ofEmily Brontë, she plays the title role.
Emily Brontë's life story is a fascinating one - just take a look at her Wikipedia page. That's why we can't understand why the filmmaker, Frances O'Connor, decided to tell a fictional story. Moreover, the fictional aspect of this fake biopic is assumed, but at no point is the viewer warned of this liberty, so it's easy to believe that Emily Brontë's love story is real, when it's not.
In Emily, Frances O'Connor imagines the journey that led the young woman to write Wuthering Heights, her only novel. And to justify the existence of this unique, marginal, deeply dark and cruel work, she has found nothing better than to recount a story of heartbreak. As well as showing a lack of imagination, this makes Emily a feature film full of clichés that have been seen a thousand times.
Watching the film, you're reminded of Pride and Prejudice, or even The Daughters of Dr. March, whose storytelling here and there picks up on the twists and turns. In doing so, the film completely misses the point. Writing is barely mentioned, even though it should be the driving force behind the story. Instead, the director prefers to film young girls in bloom, running in the rain and dreaming of beautiful love affairs, which we don't really care about. What's more, Emily Brontë is portrayed as marginal and rebellious, which she most certainly was in reality. Yet the film portrays her as nothing more than a bored petit bourgeoise. There's nothing in her actions that makes her a real "freak", as those who know her call her.
We won't go into the full list of clichés used in the film, nor its arrangements with history(Jane Eyre, written by his sister Charlotte, and published the same year as Wuthering Heights, does not exist in this story). Even if we had to assume the fictional, there was no doubt a much better story to tell than a clichéd and instantly outdated romance, since we've seen the same story told over and over again in every medium.
The film's sets and costumes provide instant immersion in 19th-century England, as does the performance of Emma Mackey, who is establishing herself as one of the new generation's talents to watch.
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