Word: austen
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They're sisters, they're Brits, and they've both been in Jane Austen movies. But that's where the similarities between EMMA and SOPHIE THOMPSON end. "Emma loves Austen, but I've never been a great reader. As a child I read Peanuts and Asterix," says Sophie, who plays the woebegone Miss Bates in Emma and the difficult sister Mary Musgrove in Persuasion. While Emma studied at Cambridge, Sophie left school early, and says her favorite hobby is "gluing things." Her mother Phyllida Law, also in Emma, is now making a movie with Emma, but the three have...
There was the worry, though, that too much tough talk might narrow the gender gap. Clinton could actually widen it by hiring America's favorite female writer, the blockbusting Jane Austen! Eagerly the speechwriters studied her entry...
Advertised as an alternative to summer blockbusters, the movie lets you feel smart for having laughed at something weighty by poking fun at the problems of class in Austen's England. In choosing his material, McGrath obviously revels in mocking the characters' indulgences, and nowhere does he have more of a field day than with the picture-book world he believes the characters inhabit: endlessly decorated lawns, trees, countrysides, even the people themselves. Characters seem absurd just walking by such a background...
Sophie Thompson has a funny turn as Miss Bates; she has had some Austen-to-screen experience, not surprisingly, in the well-made "Persuasion." Although appearing a little young for his role as Emma's clearly older friend, Mr. Knightley, Jeremy Northam nonetheless plays the clever fellow suavely and confidently. Juliet Stevenson and Ewan McGregor (he of the hyped tripe "Trainspotting") play the unrefined Mrs. Elton and the top-hatted Frank Churchill, respectively, as competently as McGrath's creation allows...
...grand summery scheme of things, "Emma" provides relief from action and adventure. But if you don't see their Highbury home exploding in a cataclysmic fireball, you might hear the pops and fizzles as Austen's subtleties get burned at the edges. It's a difficult task to put books to movies these days, and in this case, it's best to keep the two separate: read the book, and then see the opulent movie that happens to have the same name...