Emma^3

For the time being, you can watch the new version of Jane Austen's Emma on YouTube until someone reports it and it gets taken down.

I own the Kate Beckinsale version (also on YouTube, though the video quality is rougher) and prefer Kate’s portrayal simply because her facial expressions aren’t as exaggerated. She also has much better posture.

The 2009 version is good, and everyone does a great job (I particularly like that they made Emma insecure about how little she gets out in the world), but I just prefer the Kate Beckinsale one. It’s part personal taste (if you enjoy your leading ladies lively and haphazard, the 2009 version is for you), and partly that I enjoyed the book and the 2009 version takes a few liberties with showing scenes that are only alluded to. The Beckinsale version keeps to the book more strictly and has an overall more authentic feel.

Also, I don't think "Dumbledore" when I look at her father. (Yes, Dumbledore is in the 2009 one. He does much better at this role than his portrayal of Dumbledore, though.)

There's another old version (also up on YouTube O.O) with Gwyneth Paltrow, which most people will be more familiar with. I like Gwyneth Paltrow, I enjoy most of her movies, but I’m sorry to say her version isn’t as good as the other two. It seems to be more for mainstream consumption, and there are considerations taken into account for mainstream that can tamper with a good story, and not always for the better.

I tried to make my brother watch the Kate Beckinsale version. My husband enjoyed watching it when I bought it, and he’s learned to trust me when I advise him to read or watch something (when I don’t just rave about things I like, like the live action Sailor Moon or “Sonny with a Chance”). I persuaded Alex to watch “Angel” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” for example.

My brother, though, only saw the first twenty minutes or so of the Kate Beckinsale version, which he’d been making fun of before I ever put it in: “Would you like some tea? Yes, I’d love some tea! Would you like sugar in your tea? Yes, I would love sugar in my tea!” Then he saw the scene where Emma’s father goes on and on about the proper softness of a boiled egg, and he couldn’t stop laughing.

At it. Not with it.

He'd been reading theologians who lived in the time period when Emma is set. He said the problem of the day was that the aristocracy were self-absorbed and out of touch with reality, and he didn't like that Emma seemed to have that same problem. I pointed out that the point of Emma is that the lead character is like that but grows as a person through the course of the story.

He still hasn’t finished the movie, but I hope to force it on him eventually. Maybe after we make his wife finish “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” So… it’ll be a while.