Emma (2020)

The matchmaking, interfering, terribly good-intentioned snob was a heroine who Austen herself said might only be loved by her creator. Here, she’s played with a slightly spooky remove by Anya Taylor-Joy in what is a hypnotising performance at the centre of an amusingly eccentric ensemble.

…a wondrous retelling of a timeless literary masterpiece…

Novelist Eleanor Catton has scripted this amiable, genial and interestingly unassuming new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Regency classic, the great prototype romantic comedy, though it may be truer to call it a marriage comedy or marrcom.

It should be a delicious chocolate gateau but Emma. makes heavy weather of Austen's charmer, delivering a tonally uneven, mostly airless affair.

Nighy and Miranda Hart (as the bumbling, breathless Miss Bates) are terrific in their cameos, while the choice of Goth and Taylor-Joy (best known for their performances in horror movies like Suspiria, The Witch and Split) seems truly inspired.

As always with Austen, it’s a portrait in microcosm of England as it was. Yet its insights remain as fresh as ever.

Autumn de Wilde puts a subtly contemporary stamp on 'Emma' and there's a message here for the Insta generation.

Emma, with all her preening, gossipy self-love, is somehow the perfect Instagram-age heroine. Her actions in this adaptation and with Taylor-Joy's characterisation are not those of a giddy romantic obsessive, but of an unapologetic, empowered woman.

de Wilde is smart enough to trust her source material where it counts.

A largely faithful and unchallenging adaptation, beautifully staged and sharply acted by a cast adept at balancing wit and romance.

"Emma" only grows more assured as its namesake loses her balance, the pastel splendor of Christopher Blauvelt's cinematography and the vocabulary-defying genius of costume designer Alexandra Byrne endowing this classic story with a new energy all its own.