Emma (2020) - Praise from multiple angles

I don't think the average person or fan talks enough about how much of a near masterpiece Autumn de Wilde's EMMA is.

Like from nearly every angle on a film critique scale for starters. It's SUMPTUOUSLY shot, the framing, the blocking, the shot composition, the set decoration, the symmetry...are all out there putting someone like Joe Wright (who made 2005's P&P look frequently like gorgeous paintings) to shame with what she delivered. Like the tiniest nothing shots in this film are exquisitely framed, and shot. I notice it in the slightest of edits or camera position choices. Example, Late in the film when Emma and Harriet are sat by a window in a two windowed room in Hartfield, they are off to the right window, sat towards each other, inside the frame of the window, while the rest of the lusciously decorated room is there third person in the shot. It's like a painting and it's all of a ten second shot.

Another moment is when Mr. Knightley is lambasting Emma for her treatment of Mrs. Bates, the scene begins with the camera looking down on him as if from her vantage point on the carriage, but slowly as the scene progresses and you realize how much he is laying into Emma over her thoughtless transgression, the camera begins to focus from his vantage point on the ground up to her, and when she stands up she blocks out the sun as she yells and then sits back down revealing the sun again and starts to cry. THAT IS A MASTERCLASS in blocking. The scene evokes more than the words being said. In another director's hands it likely would have been shot more thoughtlessly and pedestrian.

The costuming, while at times anachronistic, still attempts to maintain period accuracy in many ways...like the dresses are elaborate, and the bonnets are elaborate, but they are still empire-waisted, and the bonnets serviceable for the task. It's a fine line and Costumer Alexandra Byrne and her team absolutely ride it constantly throughout.

The score is wonderful on its own, but the addition of folk music from the era sung either by actors themselves or simply accompanying the scenes makes the piece for me. It added a realism to the region and era. It grounded the whole thing for me.

The acting is phenomenal across the board, from the largest role (ATJ is probably my fave Austen heroine portrayal ever) to the smallest are playing with note perfect aplomb. Speaking on ATJ, again returning to the scene where she is nasty to Mrs. Bates, you watch her as she delivers the "just 3 dull things" comment with a bit of a smirk, but her face falls IMMEDIATELY enough for you to know that even SHE knows in that moment explicitly that she's done wrong...which in turn informs the scene with Knightley lambasting her later and gives it extra oomph in that you know Emma is defending the indefensible to try to save face.

I want to also note that Autumn de Wilde never directed a feature film before this (and hasn't since) and her CV was essentially "Every Florence & The Machine music video" until this point (and after)...but she put SO many other bigger directors to shame just by dint of showing a dedication to the craft itself that so many other directors simply do not have. To me it puts her up there with the skills of people like Peter Weir, or Ridley Scott, or Mike Leigh, or Gillian Armstrong, or Ang Lee even...to come out of the gate swinging THIS hard with this kind of skill? This woman needs a much bigger career in there industry. She is a treasure.