Written And Directed by Frances O'Connor
Charlotte: "You deserve for someone to see."
Emily: "Someone did! Someone did see them! You!"
Ah, a Gothic tale about one of the most influential literary icons and a tiny bit of creative licencing from a first time writer/director but long time actor? Colour me intrigued. This movie certainly made for an unsettling affair.
The Brontë sisters are icons and that's not hyperbole, they genuinely are. This movie however was pivoted around the strange one also known as Emily Brontë (Emma Mackey) and it began with a death. The death being Emily's of course.
From there onwards, the movie delved back into the past. Emily was the odd out in her family, often at odds with both her father, Patrick (Adrian Dunbar) and sisters, Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling) and Anne (Amelia Gething) as well as her aunt (Gemma Jones). None of them seemed to get Emily and her peculiar ways.
Emily did however managed to have had a better relationship with her similarly creative brother, Bramwell (Fionn Whitehead) and the two certainly got into mischief. However Branwell's fondness for married women became his own downfall and the two siblings eventually grew more distant as the movie progressed.
Of course the most prominent relationship explored in this movie was the one that Emily had with new curate, William Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). Their relationship went through the gamut of pure antagonism towards one another, a tempestuous love affair, an even worse break up and of course, death for both parties.
Despite being historically inaccurate, Emily and William's love/hate relationship really drove the narrative of this movie and the best scenes were usually the two sparring with each other. However, it's a doomed love story with a very gloomy ending in a movie that's not exactly a barrel of laughs throughout.
- Originally both Joe Alwyn and Emily Beecham were cast but left before filming began. I'm assuming the former was originally set to play William.
- The scene where Emily used a mask to impersonate her dead mother really veered into pure horror territory. I hope that's a genre Frances O'Connor delves into with her next movie.
- Standout music: Nocturne No. 2 in C Minor, H. 25, performed by Elizabeth Joy Roe.
- Chronology: Going by Emily's death, the movie began and ended in 1848.
Emily takes some creative liberties with the Wuthering Heights scribe but it's an impressive debut from writer/director and Emma Mackey gave an absolutely superb performance as Emily Brontë. It's not an easy watch but it's definitely a worthwhile one.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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