Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Emma (1996) (TV) is an adaptation of the Jane Austen novel. Screenplay is by Andrew Davies. The film was directed by Diarmuid Lawrence. Kate Beckinsale portrays Emma Woodhouse, a young woman who is very sure of her social position and her abilities. She isn't basically cruel, but she tends to assume that she has skills that she doesn't actually possess. As with other Austen novels, marriage is the expected ending for all but the most unfortunate women. A good marriage is better than a bad one, but many women must settle for the husband they can get. I point this out because Emma actually has three female protagonists--Emma, Jane Fairfax (Olivia Williams) and Harriet Smith (Samantha Morton). The novel's plot involves the pairing of these three women with three appropriate men. Who will end up with whom isn't obvious. That's what makes the novel and the movie interesting. As you'd expect from A&E, production values are high, and the actors in supporting roles are well cast. Williams and Morton were excellent. I thought Beckinsale's Emma was a little darker in spirit than Austen meant her to be. In a film adaptation of Emma, the actor portraying Emma has to grab and hold your attention. For me, that didn't happen.This movie was made for TV, so naturally it works well on the small screen. If you're an Austen fan, you'll want to see this film.Incidentally, I think that the Gwyneth Paltrow version (also produced in 1996) isn't as good. Paltrow if fine, but an absolutely central scene was omitted. This scene involves Emma and the character Miss Bates. It's a pivotal plot moment, but it was left out of the Paltrow version. It's played perfectly in this film.

I have known about this adaptation for a while, but I held off on watching it due to my apprehension at the idea of Mark Strong playing Mr. Knightley. I was concerned because when I watched this I had already seen him as Sir John Conroy in "The Young Victoria" and as Lord Blackwood in "Sherlock Holmes", both very unpleasant characters. But in my time there have been several instances of my expressing displeasure with casting choices only to eat my words when I actually saw the movie. So I entered into watching this with an impartial and optimistic outlook, sure that Mark Strong and Kate Beckinsale would surprise me with brilliant performances. And I would like to say that they did, but that would be an untruth.My Biggest fear about Mark playing Knightley was that his rebuking of Emma was going to be a watered down version of the 'RAAAWWWRR' that I was familiar with. And unfortunately, it was. Whenever Mark raises his voice, the right side of his face pulls up into a snarl. I'm sure it's unintentional, but I have seen that snarl before, and it does not belong on Mr. Knightley. As for Kate, her acting as Emma was also exactly what I feared it would be: a mere reiteration of Flora Poste, her character from "Cold Comfort Farm" - a girl who just carries on making everything go her way, and who emotes NOTHING. Oh, she said her lines, but there was nothing behind her cold dark eyes to make me believe that she felt what she said. What's more, I thought the hair styles and costumes suited her VERY ill.My sister found this intolerably boring. Only I determined to watch it to the end. The pacing is practically a paradox - it seems to drag on forever, despite the fact that several of things were rushed through. I've seen a lot of praise for how Kate and Mark portray Emma and Knightly to perfection etc. and I have no idea why because I didn't believe a word that passed between them. There are other acting and editing issues: After Mr. Elton is married, we never hear anything about how Emma has to help Harriet get over him. There is no appeal and no emotion; When Mr. Knightly says his "badly done" line at box hill (having just practically shoved Emma into the carriage) his voice breaks as though he's about to cry; Emma never really seems to be effected by being rebuked, because the next day when she goes to see Miss Bates it's almost as if the whole thing never happened.Olivia Williams was a passable Jane Fairfax, but much like Polly Walker's portrayal, Olivia failed to show the degree of Jane's distress. I found Raymond Coulthard's Frank Churchill adequate, but insignificant. Dominic Rowan was,admittedly, probably the most accurate Mr. Elton I've ever seen, but also the most unmemorable. As for Bernard Hepton as Mr. Woodhouse, I don't really care for him in the first place. The shining star for me in this version was Alistair Petrie as Robert Martin. I like him as an actor and I think he was the ideal choice for Harriet's Mr. Martin. He and Samantha Morton (Who was her usual fantastic self as Harriet Smith) played off of each other so well, even when the actors around them weren't giving them much to work with. I consider their scenes (Few as they are) to be a good reason to watch this at least once. I would probably think this a tolerably good adaptation were it not for some gargantuan elephants in the proverbial room. First is Mrs. Elton: Is she British? Is she Texan? Is she even of this world? What is with her ACCENT? Then of course there is that ludicrous harvest feast at the end of the movie. The whole concept for this scene was not at all Janely. I was under the impression that I was watching a Jane Austen adaptation, not "Far From the Madding Crowd". There were somethings that were written oddly, I found. And by "oddly", I mean "creepily"The first of these is Mr. Knightley's strawberry line. This is delivered as a voice over transition to the scene in question and is thusly portrayed as a formal invitation: "Mr. Knightly invites you to taste his strawberries, which are ripening fast." THAT was a... questionable way to word that if you ask me. In addition, that line in the book was not worded as such, and was NOT intended to be a formal invitation. It was said to Mrs. Elton and was first meant to be a joke. I quote "You had better explore Donwell then," replied Mr. Knightly. "That may be done without horse. Come eat my strawberries, they're ripening fast." 'If Mr. Knightly did not being seriously, he was obliged to proceed so...'Another of these is Mr. Knightly's proposal. I was feeling good about this scene... until he drops the "I held you in my arms when you were three weeks old" line, and I immediately felt uncomfortable. Maybe DON'T talk about how you held her when she was a baby after you just asked her to MARRY you. Lastly we have Frank Churchill praising his lovely Jane at the end of the movie. Which would be fine if we wasn't whispering in Emma's ear about how fine his dead aunt's jewels will look against Jane's skin. Can I just be the first to say "Ehehewgaugh" (shudders). It's just creepy. Frank does talk about how Mrs. Churchill's jewels will be given to Jane, but he says he means to have them reset in a head ornament that will look nice against her dark hair. Hair - Normal. Skin - weird.Really this has been a long review when three simple words would have sufficed. "Badly done indeed."

Having been a fan of Jane Austen and of Emma since GCSEs, I was eager overtime to see as many adaptations as possible. Aside from the loose, contemporary spin of the story in Clueless, a fun film full of energy, I've seen four versions. My least favourite is the Gwyneth Paltrow film, though I still like it very much for the beautiful cinematography and witty screenplay. I also love the 1972 and 2009 mini-series, the 1972 series had the best Frank Churchill and 2009 the best Mr Woodhouse, but after re-visiting it after years of just having fond memories of it I consider this 1996 TV film the best version. It is beautifully photographed, with some of the loveliest costumes and scenery of any period adaptation I've seen recently. And I loved the emphasis on the classes after seeing adaptations like 2007's Mansfield Park where they don't get enough attention, and didn't actually find it too heavy-handed. The music is effective in how simple in melody and orchestration it, the story is charming and evenly-paced and the writing is controlled and has wit and charm throughout. Kate Beckinsale looks absolutely radiant as Emma, just as much as she did in 1993's Much Ado About Nothing, it helps that she's young and she leaves room for her character Emma, a flawed and multifaceted character, to grow. Mark Strong is a perfect Knightley, not as dashing as Jeremy Northam or Jonny Lee Miller, but still gentlemanly, handsome and compassionate. Bernard Hepton is perfect as the funny if tiring Mr Woodhouse, Samantha Morton is a firm Harriet and Raymond Coulthart is very magnetic as Frank Churchill. Olivia Williams, Prunella Scales, Samantha Bond and Lucy Robinson are also excellent. All in all, my favourite Emma, I agree the ending is a little too friendly, but other than that this is great. 9/10 Bethany Cox

As winter approaches, our state-owned broadcaster, the ABC, has decided for some reason to have a partial Jane Austen Festival on Sunday nights. This commenced with a twelve-year old movie length version of "Emma" last Sunday; more recent versions of three other novels, "Persuasion", "Northanger Abbey" and "Mansfield Park" are to come.The curious thing about this production by A&E Television Networks, with script by the ever-reliable Andrew Davies, is that it appeared almost simultaneously with two much bigger budget movie versions, one starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and "Clueless", a "modernized" version, starring Alicia Silverstone, which transported the plot to Beverly Hills. Perhaps as a result, even with Kate Beckinsale in the lead, this production sank without trace.As a general rule, much is lost when novels are shrunk to fit feature movie length. The adaptations one tends to both enjoy and remember are those which have adequate room to develop both story and characters. An outstanding example is "Brideshead Revisited" which had 13 50-minute episodes back in 1982. You only have to compare the very ordinary movie-length version of "Pride and Prejudice" in 2005 with the brilliant 1995 six-part TV mini-series. It's not that a novel should be filmed page by page, and some novels (often not very good ones) adapt wonderfully to film ("Atonement" is a recent example), but novels of the Jane Austen sort need some time and space to exert their full charm.Given the shortcomings of this type of adaptation, this production is OK. Kate Beckinsale gives Emma the right mix of self-assuredness and vulnerability and Mark Strong is a forthright Mr Knightly (he reminded me that Jane tended to recycle characters – Knightly is a more articulate version of the moody Mr Darcy of P&P). Samantha Morton was a rather limp Harriet but Prunella Scales got the blabbermouth Miss Bates perfectly – Sybil Fawlty on speed. Bernard Hepton as Emma's feeble father was also excellent. We saw the damp countryside, the mud and the poverty as well as the posh interiors, in case anyone thought this was a particularly idyllic age for everybody.Even though this was a condensed adaptation it was oddly slow in places – some of the conversations were rather stilted, even allowing for the formalities of the times. I'd have to look at the film again to be sure, but it might be due to the under-use of reaction shots.If you do like filmed period stuff this is a perfectly nice example, and compares well with the Paltrow version. Anyway, there is more to come!