EMILY – Review by Jennifer Green
Actor turned debut writer/director Frances O’Connor’s Emily Brontë biopic, Emily, boasts solid acting and beautiful cinematography, and its theme of intellects pushing against the boundaries of their day comes across well in the story and its many memorable moments of strong emotion. But the film also feels a little lost at times in its search for dramatic peaks and forced suspense to keep 130 minutes of screen time interesting. Shaving 30 or more minutes off in editing would have helped keep the story more focused and allowed the film’s many compelling elements to shine.
The tale follows Emily (Emma Mackey) and her sisters as they move through young adulthood within the confines of early 1800s rural England. The sisters, and Emily’s beloved brother Branwell (Fionn Whitehead), have active imaginations and the impulse to create art and literature. Branwell and Emily are the most radical, pushing against social and church constricts to a degree that ultimately causes them both grief and alienation.
The ne’er-do-well Branwell finds himself endlessly in trouble and shifted from position to position. Emily, meanwhile, is known as “the strange one” and appears to suffer from extreme social anxiety. It isn’t until she falls in love and begins a passionate affair with the local curate, William Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), that she feels right in the world, though their secret affair is doomed from the start. Still, it’s his and Branwell’s encouragement of her talent and craft that ultimately motivates her to write and publish her novel, Wuthering Heights.
Emily is a lovingly captured timepiece that makes the most of the rolling hills of the English countryside and candlelit interiors. Some of its more memorable scenes involve little to no dialogue, like a tender goodbye hug through a sheet hanging to dry on the laundry line, a romantic moment where a couple imagines they hear the sounds of waves crashing, and a spooky mock séance.
Despite the biographical liberties O’Connor has taken, the film’s historical visual details are admirable, and the character of Emily comes to life. The costuming and sets melt into the background naturally. Likewise, the mostly young cast members are surprisingly credible as contemporaries from 200 years ago.
Mackey (co-star of Netflix series Sex Education) gives an especially unpretentious performance, appearing in almost every scene and often with the camera close on her features. Her wide brown eyes and severe jawline infuse Emily with the sense of someone taking it all in and appraising every interaction, no matter how little she says or emotes outwardly. When she does let loose in a few key scenes, her criticism cuts to the core.
The idea that Emily had a fascinatingly rich intellectual life, superior to most around her, seems a major focus for O’Connor. Her Emily and Branwell, full of youthful enthusiasm and privilege, react against the church mores and limited horizons of the times, scrawling “freedom in thought” across their forearms in solidarity and personal rebellion. You want them to spread their wings and soar, but of course that wasn’t entirely possible for them. History wrote the rest.
