Cineworld has been bringing us various Unlimited Screenings lately. Last night, for the latest Cineworld Unlimited viewing, they brought us a preview screening of Emily starring Emma Mackey in the lead role of Emily Brontë.
This new movie from Warner Bros tells the imagined life of one of the world’s most famous authors, Emily Brontë. The film stars Emma Mackey (“Sex Education”, “Death on the Nile”) as Emily, a rebel and misfit, as she finds her voice and writes the literary classic Wuthering Heights. “EMILY” explores the relationships that inspired her – her raw, passionate sisterhood with Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling – “The Musketeers”) and Anne (Amelia Gething – “The Spanish Princess”); her first aching, forbidden love for Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen – “The Lost Daughter”, “The Haunting of Bly Manor”) and her care for her maverick brother (Fionn Whitehead – “The Duke”, “Dunkirk”) whom she idolises. Frances O’Connor makes her directorial debut with “EMILY,” from her own original screenplay. The film also stars Adrian Dunbar (“Line of Duty”) and Gemma Jones (“Bridget Jones’s Baby”, “Gentleman Jack”).
The movie starts off with a rather sombre mood as we see Emily (Mackey) on her deathbed and her sister Charlottle (Dowling) asking her about her book, Wuthering Heights, we are then whisked off to a moment before the ill-fated moment and learn a little more about Emily and her life, challenges and loves prior to her writing the book and sadly her death.
I have to say that this is a movie that isn’t going to appeal to everyone and this could be seen from the evening’s screening with only around 10 people (including myself) at the Unlimited screening which is a lot less than I was expecting.
The challenge with movies such as this these days is going up against the likes of action and horror movies, the period drama seems to be well and truly rooted at home on TV, especial from the likes of ITV and BBC, bringing Emily’s story to the big screen is something that very few may have found of interest!
There really isn’t that much to the story for the 130-minute runtime, it’s all really a short time in her life from being classed as the “strange sister” to becoming one of the most well-known names in literature.
The cinematography throughout the movie does look good with the Yorkshire moors rolling off into the distance, although some scenes were very dark and sometimes you couldn’t see much detail this could have been just the screening that we had, the costumes look great for the period and certainly give the movie that feeling that there has been a lot of attention to detail to get things as right as possible for the time period.
The cast certainly bring the characters to life and Mackey more so for Emily, she was great to watch on the big screen along with the rest of the cast when they shared the screen time together.
I did find the movie dragged along at one point and there may have been moments that the movie could have been a tad shorter, if this had been a TV release I could imagine that it would have been released as a 2 part mini-series.
If you are interested in Bronte and Wuthering Heights and enjoy your period dramas then this is probably a movie that you will want to see on the big screen, but if you did miss the theatrical release then the DVD of Emily is out on the 12th of December 2022.
The tragic story of Emily
Movie title: EMILY
Movie description: Emily imagines the transformative, exhilarating, and uplifting journey to the womanhood of a rebel and a misfit, one of the world's most famous, enigmatic, and provocative writers who died too soon at the age of 30.
Date published: October 12, 2022
Country: UK
Duration: 2h 10m
Director(s): Frances O'Connor
Actor(s): Emma Mackey, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Adrian Dunbar
Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance
Summary
Emily certainly looks the part with wonderful costume design and a great cast, but is over two hours too long!
Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.
