Miranda Hart | Scott's Film Reviews-1,425 + Reviews posted!!!

Emma-2020

Director-Autumn de Wilde

Starring-Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn

Scott’s Review #1,128

Reviewed March 31, 2021

Grade: B

I haven’t read the classic Jane Austen novel written in 1815 nor have I seen the 1996 film version starring Gweneth Paltrow. Neither of these is a prerequisite to enjoying the 2020 version of Emma starring Anya Taylor-Joy in the lead role of Emma Woodhouse.

The film, while set in the early nineteenth century, feels incredibly contemporary and seemingly makes little attempt at a classic style save for the hair, makeup, and costumes. These items are splendid, and the high point, and make the film stylish and bright.

Beautiful, smart, and rich, Emma (Taylor-Joy) enjoys her matchmaking skills that sometimes lead to awkward or failed matches and romantic missteps. She claims to not be interested in her romance or potential suitors though that changes with time.

She struggles with the challenges of growing up, though she is pampered and has a habit of involving herself in other’s business. Emma is also mischievous and not always kind though deep down she is a good person and has regret when she hurts someone’s feelings with her antics.

In a good, coming of age way, she finally realizes that love for her and a proper match of her own has been there all along and staring her in the face.

The film begins with Emma’s governess, Miss Taylor (Gemma Whelan), marrying and becoming Mrs. Weston. She and Emma are best friends and Emma is saddened so she settles on Harriet Smith (Mia Goth), a younger girl whom Emma supposes is the unclaimed child of a gentleman; Harriet’s parents are unknown, but her education has been provided for. They become bonded and Emma’s influence is immeasured.

Taylor-Joy does a wonderful job in the title role and carefully makes Emma naughty and sometimes unlikable before carefully reeling her in with an act of kindness. She has no malice in mind but is often bored and looking for excitement. I found myself rooting for her to find romance with Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn), which she does but not without a hurdle or two on the way.

Other characters come and go with flirtations and romantic possibilities explored.

Speaking of Flynn, the actor is rumored to play rock icon David Bowie in a future theatrical feature. A real musician, Flynn should be the perfect casting for that important part. He is the only character to show some flesh, his bare bum, in Emma and one wonders if female director Autumn de Wilde did this purposefully. After all, traditionally in cinema, it’s been the female who is more commonly nude. Turnabout is fair play.

While Taylor-Joy is good she is nearly upstaged by the delightful Goth who is fabulous as the insecure and impressionable Harriet. With humor and innocence, she makes her character quite likable. I’d like to see more from this young actress. Bill Nighy is perfectly cast as the comical father of Emma while Miranda Hart as Miss Bates steamrolls over every scene she is in.

Some inconsistencies exist especially where Miss Bates is concerned. A quick mention that Miss Bates and her family had once been rich and are now struggling is not explored where it reportedly was in the novel.

Dividing the film into seasonal sections (Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer) is a good decision and makes it more like a novel. The winter snow and Christmas festivities along with a summer picnic do wonders to add fresh atmospheric tidbits. The many scenes of delicious spreads of food and drink laid out for hungry eyes to see offer a robust and colorful glimpse of the culture.

The vibrancy, the food, and the aforementioned clothing, all brimming with richness based on the seasons are the main draw. The castles and large houses featured surely small-town English style brim with vastness and atmosphere.

Emma (2020) is a fun film and the story is not the best part of it. Predictably, all characters wind up with romantically who they should wind up with and there is a happily ever after sensibility.

Adolescents can easily sit in comfort with their mother and father and enjoy the lightweight affair. Nobody will be offended and all will be satisfied. It’s a solid romantic period piece.

Oscar Nominations: Best Costume Design, Best Makeup & Hairstyling

Spy-2015

Director Paul Feig

Starring Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham

Scott’s Review #386

Reviewed March 20, 2016

Grade: C+

Spy is a 2015 comedy spy spoof starring funny lady Melissa McCarthy as a loser desk CIA analyst suddenly thrown into the field and assigned to rescue a missing agent with whom she is also in love.

Carrying the film in every way, McCarthy is funny and adds to an otherwise formulaic, by-numbers, comedy.

As, admittedly, the “action-comedy” genre is not my favorite, I have seen much worse than Spy, and the premise is quite nice, but the second half of the film sinks into the ridiculous and is very loud and overly long.

McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a frumpy forty-year-old woman with a decent job as a CIA analyst (she tracks the field agents’ cameras and warns them of impending peril), an important job, but is deemed dispensable and a loser by the higher-ups at her job, with more important duties.

She is single, overweight, and lonely, pining after her sophisticated partner Bradley Fine (Jude Law), a field agent and stylish James Bond-type. After a mishap with Bradley thought dead, Susan goes undercover in France, Rome, and Budapest to solve the case since she will be unnoticed.

Spy is a film with a star that completely carries the film. Being a big fan of McCarthy’s and enjoying her performance in whatever she appears in (comedy or drama), this film needs her charisma and comic timing.

Spy contains a few laugh-out-loud moments, especially when McCarthy is forced to take on the persona of one loser after another- a divorcee with multiple cats and a wardrobe to cringe over-throw in a 1980s perm and got a great SNL-type moment.

The film itself reminds me of a long SNL skit. When McCarthy delivers her one-liners they connect and amuse.

An apparent homage to spy films and James Bond films, Spy seems closer to an Austin Powers film as it goes for more silliness, but not quite as over the top.

Still, the European locales offered added elements of Bond films pleasantly. McCarthy as an apparent female James Bond is also cute.

A noticeable negative is the unnecessary two-hour running time. With a genre of this nature, a ninety to one-hundred-minute running time is all that is necessary, and any more than that the jokes wane, become redundant, and usually go into the ridiculous.

Another problem with Spy is the supporting characters. A well-known cast including Rose Byrne, Allison Janney, Jason Statham, and Bobby Cannavale, each of these actors are cast in cartoon-like, one-note roles.

Cannavale and Byrne are the villains (Sergio and Rayna) in the plot and they play their roles in a one-dimensional way, as evil as possible, but perhaps also over-acting the parts.

This could be the fault of the director or simply what is accepted in the genre that this is. Janney- as the tough-as-nails CIA director and Statham as the dumb, temperamental, field agent also overplay their roles.

Why are all of these characters loud, unpleasant, insulting, or all of the above? The answer is it might allow better comedy to have caricatures instead of characters, but that is a debate for another time.

On the other hand, Miranda Hart as McCarthy’s sidekick Nancy, a very tall, awkward woman, and Susan’s best friend is great and shares equally in the comic success that McCarthy brings.

Their chemistry is evident and a recommended second pairing would be worth exploring. Unlike the other characters, I felt myself rooting for her and wished her a love interest, though the 50 Cent’s romantic introduction was strange.

The plot is more or less trivial and unimportant in a film like this. Rationally speaking, almost everything that transpires would never happen in real life, but alas, this is the movie, so one must suspend disbelief big time.

Spy is escapist fare to the max.

A hot mess if not for the wit and comic timing that McCarthy brings, Spy (2015) has an interesting premise but doesn’t deliver anything more than the silly formula that has existed for decades in the film comedy world.

I finished the film with mixed emotions.