EMILY

UK, 2022, 130 minutes, Colour.

Emma Mackay, Oliver Gordon-Cohen, Fionn Whitehead, Adrian Dunbar, Gemma Jones, Alexandra Dowling, Gerard Lepkowski.

Directed by Frances O’Connor.

Emily is Emily Brontë.  Her Wuthering Heights takes its place eminently in 19^th-century English literature. And, over the decades, there have been quite a number of film versions. And, in cinema history, there have been two films about the Brontë Sisters, Devotion (filmed in 1943, released after the war) with Ida Lupino as Emily. And, in 1981, a French drama, directed by Andre Teschine, with Isabelle Adjani as Emily.

This is not a documentary. In fact, it is a speculation about the emotional life of Emily Brontë based on a presupposition that a novel which expresses such emotion and such passion could not have been written by the rather shy, considered sometimes odd, isolated generally in the Yorkshire Moors, young woman, without some personal passionate experience.

The film has been written and directed by Australian actress (English-born), Frances O’Connor. She creates a portrait of Emily, young, introverted, avoiding society, part of the Brontë household, with her two sisters, Charlotte and Anne, both writing and publishing novels under male pseudonyms, dominated by their severe father in his church and parsonage, along with their talented brother Branwell who fails his life and ambitions.

This is a comparatively long film, 130 minutes, so the audience spends a lot of time in Haworth, in the parsonage, on the moors, at the railway station where Branwell works, and an excursion to the Academy in Brussels. But, with costumes and decor and the bleakness of the moors, storms and rain, it has a certain grandness. And this is reinforced by the powerful and varied musical score, orchestral, choral, piano interludes, strings interludes.

Frances O’Connor spends a lot of time with close-ups on the face of the central characters, uses handheld camera for movement within the parsonage, and some grand sweeps of the countryside.

Emma Mackey is convincing as Emily, both in her reticence and in the sudden, then prolonged, outburst of passion. She startingly resembles Margot Robbie. Emily Brontë was obviously a very complex character in real life and Emma Mackey’s performance indicates a great deal of that complexity.

Oliver Gordon Cohen plays the Reverend William Weightman, Mr Brontë’s new curate, well-educated, striking appearance, eloquent, emotional homilies based on his life, and drawing all the female members of the congregation with his presence. He is rather severe in his moral perspectives and judgements – all the more complex in his attraction to Emily and her passionate response to him, a series of rendezvous in a farm shed, new experience for Emily, but Weightman tormented by his conscience and moral stances and distancing himself from Emily. There are dramatic consequences in his writing a letter to Emily as she decides to go with Charlotte to Brussels, giving the letter to Branwell and his not giving the letter to Emily after he reads it and is upset. She receives it only after Branwell’s death and William Weightman’s death from cholera.

The story of Branwell adds some complications to the plot, his artistic talent, accepted into the Academy, his leaving, his having a free spirit (“Freedom of Thought” tattooed on his arm and Emily imitating him to William Weightman shock), beginning to rely on opium and alcohol, his father sending him to work at a railway station – and then his death.

So, this is not a film about the writing of Wuthering Heights – that takes place at the very end of the film, Emily taking pen to paper, the book being published in three volumes (shown here with her name rather than with her male pseudonym, Currer Bell).

Audiences looking for a straightforward biography, staying with the facts, so to speak, may be disappointed or upset with Frances O’Connor’s speculations. However, as a dramatic speculation about the inner and passionate Emily Brontë, it is arresting.

1. The title, the focus on Emily Brontë? Audience knowledge of Wuthering Heights, of Emily herself, her life, the Parsonage at Haworth, her sisters, Branwell?
2. The work of Frances O’Connor, writing the screenplay, directing the film, her style, the sweeping scenery, the Yorkshire Moors, the domestic sequences, close-ups, long lingering on the close-ups, hand-held camera? The range of the musical score, like a concerto, orchestral, choral, piano sequences, string sequences?
3. Emily Brontë’s short life, her place in the family, the sisters, her brother? The strict father at the Parsonage? The death of her mother? The sisters and their writing, call to teaching, Emily and her poetry, the eventual writing of Wuthering Heights? How closely did the screenplay keep to facts?
4. The fictitious imagining of Emily and her relationship with Weightman? Credible? The passionate experience and its effect on her creating her characters and their passion?
5. Emma Mackay’s performance as Emily? Age, sheltered, introverted, considered odd, her behaviour confirming this? The interactions with Charlotte, Charlotte older, the teacher, knowing French, somewhat superior, yet their affection, lying together in the room, conversing? The relationship with Anne, younger, her absence, return? The relationship with Branwell, his artistic talent, going to the Academy, his father’s pride, his failure, return, collapse?
6. The episode of the games, the charades, everybody participating, Emily unwilling, the mask in the household, unknown origin, Emily putting on the mask, the charade of speaking as her mother, to each of the characters, the serious effect? Weightman and his questioning her later about her power during charade?
7. The Parsonage, the strict father, his sermons, the touch of the puritanical? The congregation, the response, faith, Emily and her comments about God, faith and questioning? The arrival of William Weightman, curate, his sermons, charming all the women, based on his experience? Emily and her response, suspicious, wary of him, observing him, his attitude towards Charlotte and the others, the cousin and her arrival, the episode of being caught in the rain on the Moors? The change of heart? Charlotte’s absence? Time together with Weightman, the hesitancy, the kisses, the rendezvous in the shed, the sexual passion, the effect on Emily, Weightman and his conscience, moral issues, keeping Emily at a distance, the effect on her, emotions, mental state?
8. Emily and her link with Branwell, the walks on the Moors, the tattoo on Freedom of Thought? Her discovering the opium? His drinking, the drugs, her experience of the drugs? Branwell and his father, upset at his failure, the job at the railway station, the sequences at the station, Emily on the train, visits? In the room, his drinking, his giving her the chapters of his writing, her being upset about Weightman and his resistance, Branwell asking her opinion of his writing, her very frank condemnation of his writing and of his imagination? Her later change of heart?
9. Weightman, Emily deciding to go with Charlotte to Brussels, the sequences in Brussels, the students, French, the return home and Charlotte insisting on speaking French, Emily and her harsh criticisms of Charlotte? Weightman and his giving the letter to Branwell, Branwell reading it, not giving it to Emily, his dying, her visiting his body, and the message, his leaving Weightman’s letter?
10. Brussels, the news of Weightman’s illness, his death, and Emily receiving the letter after his death?
11. The family at home, the funeral, the rain? Discussions with Charlotte?
12. Going to the desk, beginning to write, completing the novel, sending it to the publishers, receiving the three volumes (with her name instead of the male pseudonym)?
13. Charlotte and her reaction? Overcome? Her father, praising Emily and her achievement? The pride that would have been her mother’s?
14. Emily’s collapse, death, young, yet her literary achievement in one novel as well as her poems?