Best of the Emmas

It seems reasonable to start a discussion of Austen’s Emma with the titular character herself. From the text, we are told that:

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

Austen pg. 1

Yet later, we heard from Mr. Knightley that he “love[s] to look at her; and I will add this prase, that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how very handsome she is, she appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies another way” (Austen pg. 39)

Now, in consideration of all this, the question is: which Emma embodies… Emma?

For my part, I must give it to Romola Garai in the Masterpiece Theatre 4-part adaptation. My reasoning is thus: Romola Garai manages to be both beautiful and utterly disarming. She is charming, personable, and mischievous in her little sideways looks and grins. Gwyneth Paltrow is beautiful of course, and her hearty laugh is endearing. Anya Taylor-Joy embodies a very different, but equally valid side to Emma – the unfettered, unabashed snob. Ultimately, we have to ask: which character manages to be both beautiful but also little occupied with it? Snobbish, but somehow still entirely sweet and beguiling?? And frankly, all three actresses manage to convey Emma’s snobbishness, though I would argue that Romola Garai manages the transformation in an altogether different way – through being utterly naive about herself and her snobbishness, she is taken unawares when she must face up to how she has misunderstood herself and her society, very much to the detriment of the character we will speak of in the next post: Miss Harriet Smith. Nonetheless, in comparing Garai, Paltrow, and Taylor-Joy, Garai edges out the others.

In fact, when watching Anya Taylor-Joy as Emma, my own daughter asked how she got so many perfectly tight little curls all over her head (probably thinking she might try it out the next day for school!). Well, I responded, it’s a nod to her wealth and status because each of those curls had to be hand-curled with a tiny little rod heated on the hearth or over a stove by a maid, probably a maid paid solely to care for Emma, dress her, and coif her hair! I can only imagine it would have taken absolute hours to achieve the level of baby curls bobbing about on Taylor-Joy’s noggin’ (and that quashed any chance my daughter would be waking at 4 a.m. to style her hair and sear her forehead). In fact, Vogue presented an article about how the make-up and hair artists went about creating Emma, and in one section, it describes heating up tiny tongs in a mini-oven. So there you go:

https://www.vogue.com/article/emma-adaptation-beauty-anya-taylor-joy-transformation

All considered, that just doesn’t jive with being “little occupied” with her beauty.

It must be said, however, that for a die-hard fan like myself, both the length of the adaptation and its inclusion of some seemingly less-important details from the text itself endear it to me over the scant theatre-length versions. So am I being swayed by the powers and prowess of the multi-part series?? Sure. In terms of ranking, Anya Taylor-Joy offers a close second, followed by Gwyneth Paltrow.

What do you think, Dear Reader? Have I overlooked some critical component?

And for those looking to see a further comparison, here’s a little nugget from youtube: