Based on the new motion picture biography of writer Emily Bronte, she and her sisters Charlotte and Anne had a lot more fun than we might believe folks did in the English countryside in the first half of the 19th century.
In fact, in “Emily,” which is the directorial debut of actress Frances O’Connor (“Mansfield Park,” “A.I. Artificial Intelligence”), the sisters lived fast and died young. As befits the title, the movie focuses on Emily Bronte and her authorship of “Wuthering Heights,” a book that some folks call the greatest novel ever written. Emma Mackey plays Emily. Alexandra Dowling is Charlotte. Amelia Gething is Anne.
As with many female writers of the era, Emily (1818–1848), Charlotte (1816–1855) and Anne (1820–1849) published their novels under male pen names.
Charlotte found instant fame with “Jane Eyre” (originally credited to Currer Bell), which was a smash hit right out of the gate.
Emily wrote “Wuthering Heights” under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. Anne’s best book, “The Tenant Of Wildfell,” was published under the name Acton Bell. Both of their novels took a little longer than Charlotte’s to make their mark with the reading public. All are considered masterpieces of English literature.
After a prelude with Emily suffering from a sickness from which she will not recover, director O’Connor journeys back in time to relate the story of how “Wuthering Heights” came to fruition. Something is omitted, however, and that’s a deeper psychological examination of Emily’s mind. There’s less dot-connecting than we needed. The mechanics are detailed — we watch the how of the writing — but Emily’s darker personal thoughts that engendered such a forbidding novel, which encompasses physical abuse, mental anguish and domestic conflict, are not as forthcoming as they should have been.
The book is critical of the suffocating rules of Victorian Era morality. It also challenges the religious convictions of the times and demands an explanation of the lock-step subservience to specific societal values. The Bronte sisters’ father was a well-educated man of faith and letters who wrote poetry and essays and earned his income and social status as a resident parish priest, also known as an incumbent curate, within the United Church of England and Ireland.
What screenwriter O’Connor does that her directing self relishes is to make us think that Emily’s life was a barrel of laughs. The movie is remarkably bright and breezy. Perhaps Emily thought she was actually writing a comic novel that people took more seriously than she expected they would; the upshot being that nobody laughed as much the Bronte girls. Oh that’s so wicked Emily, and the giggles ensue.
When she isn’t frolicking in the western reaches of the Yorkshire moors, Emily ingests opium, smokes cigarettes, and has a ribald sex life with a handsome young and suitably serious fellow named William Weightman (Oliver-Jackson Cohen). He’s the assistant to the Bronte girls’ father at the church. If none of this is true, then O’Connor has an incredibly fertile imagination.
The girls and Weightman have fun playing games, especially one involving a mask that offers the tantalizing tingle of a horror movie. They are all joined by the eager young Branwell Bronte (Fionn Whitehead), the sisters’ equally handsome brother, who is both a talented painter and a drug addict.
Charlotte, a teacher, and William seem the most levelheaded. When Charlotte visits, she enjoys needling Emily. She also deems her to be an odd duck, which she milks for all its worth. You know how big sisters and families are. Anne is young in age and at heart. Branwell is the life of his own party.
All of the film’s acting is exceptional, but special praise goes to Mackey for making a woman with astonishing intellectual talent wonderfully relatable. I appreciated her character’s ability to consume as much of the attention as she could in the context of a very competitive family. “Look at me, I’m Emily B.”
O’Connor makes you care about Emily, even if a lot of the goings-on seem out of character for the tenor of the time. Her writing talent was prodigious. According to O’Connor, so was her passion for being in the spotlight.
If you go see “Emily,” which is playing at the North Park Theatre, you will delight in the costumes designed by Michael O’Connor, especially all of the fabulous hats worn by women. Nanu Segal’s cinematography, which often glows with candlelight, is outstanding. You expect moody moors, but Segal gives them a special allure.
“Emily” has an engaging energy that may belie the era in which it’s set, but it’s certainly enjoyable. There’s an intensity that we don’t often experience in far too many of today’s homogenized movies. It’s about a woman who is committed to her own understanding of freedom.
O’Connor has delivered a story that lives and breathes in the best way possible. Her film not only has great style, it also has a wellspring of encouragement and respect for a young woman who had writing talent that helped change the literary world.