EMMA. (2020) [PG] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on April 14, 2020.

William Shakespeare. Charles Dickens. Jane Austen. Those three authors are perhaps the most frequently adapted writers of classic novels in the relatively short history of cinema. There’s a reason for that. The timeless nature of their output has allowed filmmakers to create new editions for each generation. Whether it’s Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, Great Expectations, or Pride & Prejudice, there’s always room for a new interpretation. In the case of Emma, although there have been some solid (and relatively recent) adaptations in the form of 1995’s Clueless (in which director Amy Heckerling reimagined the title character as a 1990s Valley Girl played by Alicia Silverstone) and Douglas McGrath’s more straightforward version (with Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma), nothing exists (unlike with Pride & Prejudice) that could be considered definitive. Although that hasn’t changed with the 2020 movie, Autumn de Wilde (the successful music video director making her feature debut) accomplishes what Joe West did with his 2005 Kiera Knightley-fronted Pride & Prejudice: tweak the story, update the cast, and give current audiences a chance to revisit one of English literature’s best-loved tales.

EMMA. details the matchmaking attempts of twenty-one year old Emma Woodhouse (Anya Taylor-Joy), an incorrigible meddler who believes that there is nothing more beautiful than a match well made. After successfully orchestrating the marriage of her governess, Miss Taylor (Gemma Whelan), to the widower Mr. Weston (Rupert Graves), Emma sets her sights on pairing her plain, uncultured friend, Harriet Smith (Mia Goth), with the local vicar, Reverend Elton (Josh O’Connor). Mr. Elton, however, has another bride in mind and, when he brushes Harriet aside to pursue the other lady, Harriet is left emotionally bruised. Emma's closest male friend and frequent verbal sparring partner, Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn), watches these events with sadness and describes her activities as vanity working on a weak mind [that] produces every kind of mischief. Emma herself is unattached, but, since this is a Jane Austen story, it's obvious that won't last for long. Indeed, before the two hours are up, the title character has become enmeshed in a number of romantic entanglements. But anyone who thinks Emma is destined to become engaged to the arrogant Frank Churchill (Callum Turner) doesn’t know a thing about Austen.

Purists will note that significant chunks of Emma are either missing or have been stripped down. This is not unexpected. Although a pure Emma might be possible for a six-hour TV mini-series, Austen’s novel is too long and complicated to make it unabridged into a theatrical screenplay. For the most part, screenwriter Eleanor Catton makes good choices about what to include and what to elide, resulting in a final product that is streamlined, easy to follow, yet unmistakably Austen. Most (if not all) of the dialogue is taken verbatim from the novel and Austen’s wit shines through.

Anya Taylor-Joy is an unconventional but successful choice for the title character. The actress, whose highest profile role to-date is probably her 2020 Netflix TV miniseries The Queen’s Gambit, has an expressive face, knows how to deliver Austen’s dialogue with the right mix of tartness and seriousness, and wears the period clothing well. Equally good is Mia Goth – she makes Harriet’s awkwardness more sympathetic than pitiable. Unfortunately, there’s a sense of the generic with both of the male leads, Johnny Flynn’s Knightley (although his dressing-down of Emma is nicely done) and especially Callum Turner’s Frank Churchill, who is devoid of personality. Not surprisingly, Bill Nighy steals every scene in which he appears, playing Emma’s father.

EMMA. isn’t the best example of Austen to come to the big or small screen but that’s as much the fault of the source material – it’s average Austen, if there is such a thing – as of the cast and crew. The movie is handsomely mounted and consistently engaging. Yes, the story is familiar but part of the charm is seeing how key scenes have been re-envisioned by the filmmakers. The movie’s release during the coronavirus pandemic prompted its availability for home viewing and provides those with a love of classics and of Jane Austen with an opportunity to affirm that there’s still room for Regency/Georgian romantic comedies in today’s spectacle-oriented industry. [Berardinelli’s rating: 3 stars out of 4]

Labels: comedy, drama, period, romance
IMDb 67/100
MetaScore (critics=71, viewers=63)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=73, viewers=78)
Blu-ray 

Genius: Picasso (2018) [TV-14] *****

 

Interweaving scenes between Pablo as the young man determined to express his own point of view with his art, and Picasso as the older, mature, technical master and visionary creator, Genius: Picasso takes us into the artist’s life.

Picasso lived for 91 years and spent roughly 80 of that creating nearly 50,000 works of art including paintings, drawings prints, sculptures and ceramics, that made him famous throughout the world and also one of the most creative artists in history. Genius: Picasso tells the story of Pablo Picasso’s life, taking us through his ups and downs, successes and failures to help us understand what drove him to create, and why his art was more important to him than anyone or anything in his life.

Filmed throughout Western Europe, including Paris, Málaga, Barcelona, Budapest and Malta, the series features a number of well-known personalities who crossed paths with Picasso, including Gertrude Stein, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque and Jean Cocteau.

Genius: Picasso was originally broadcast as a National Geographic special in 2018. The ten chapters are available as a 3-DVD set through your local library or on streaming channels such as Hulu or Prime Video. Here is an extensive synopsis of the ten chapters:

CHAPTER 1 opens on October 25, 1881 with the birth of Pablo in the Spanish coastal town of Málaga. Next, we see Pablo (Timothy Lyons), nine years of age, at a bullfight with his father, José Ruiz y Blasco (David Wilmot). Pablo learns to draw under the tutelage of his father, who is an art instructor at a provincial school. In 1894 we see Pablo at thirteen (Alessio Scalzotto), drawing his young sister Conchita who later succumbs to diphtheria. In 1895 Pablo begins studying at La Llotja, School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, and two years later, in 1897 Pablo (Alex Rich) begins studying at the Real Academia de Belles Artes in Madrid thanks to the generosity of his wealthy uncle, Dr. Salvador Ruiz (Jordi Mollà). After several years of study in Madrid, and being told he has talent but no discipline, Pablo decides he's had enough studying. He wants to paint something original, unique. Then, in 1899 the Spanish-American War begins and Pablo, along with his friend Manuel Pallarès (Charlie Carrick) leave Madrid for the mountains to avoid the draft. But the rains come early and ruin his paintings, so Pablo returns to Barcelona and meets anarchist Carles Casagemas (Robert Sheehan) in a local brothel where he is painting Dolores (Elena Martinéz). It is then that Pablo decides he must go to Paris to see the work of artists of Post-Impressionism such as Paul Cezanne. In 1900 he has a painting accepted at the Spanish Pavilion of the Universal Exhibition in Paris, so, in October, 1900, Pablo and Casagemas go to Paris.

In 1937 we see Picasso at 56 (Antonio Banderas) in his Paris studio with two-year-old Maya, his daughter with mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter (Poppy Delevingne). Though Marie-Thérèse’s unassuming and yielding personality provides a haven for Picasso during his tempestuous marriage to ballerina Olga Khokhlova, her lack of intellectual curiosity and spirit bore him and he begins an affair with beautiful painter and photographer Dora Maar (Samantha Colley), his equal in drive, intellect and passion. Dora challenges him to accept a commission to paint a large mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. After Fascist Franco's German allies bomb the ancient Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Picasso decides he must paint a mural of the destruction, and Dora photographs his creation of Guernica, a powerful visual statement of the bombing.

Françoise Gilot (Clemence Poesy) and her school friend and fellow artist Geneviève Aliquot (Stephane Caillard) see the mural. It disturbs Françoise but Geneviève reminds her that Picasso said art is not meant to decorate apartments; it is meant to be a weapon.

In 1938 Antibes, South of France, Picasso and Dora Maar enjoy the beach. Dora is clearly his muse; she is creative, fiercely independent and challenges him as no other woman. A year later, in 1939, the Germans invade Poland and begin WWII. Paul Rosenberg (Will Keen), Picasso's Jewish art dealer, closes his gallery and emigrates to London, but Picasso refuses to leave his art behind and stays in Paris.

CHAPTER 2 opens in Rennes in May, 1940. Françoise Gilot and her parents are unable to leave France for England because the Germans have closed the harbor. In Tremblay-Sur-Mauldre, Germans occupy Picasso's home, so he drives 300 miles north from Hotel du Tigre in Royan on the Mediterranean to liberate his artwork while the Germans are away on patrol.

In 1943, in German-occupied France, Picasso divides his time between Marie-Thérèse Walter and her young daughter Maya (Flora Chedlivili), Dora Maar, and his wife Olga and son Paulo. Realizing that he needs new inspiration from a new muse, Picasso tells Dora that Marie-Thérèse is the only woman he loves, signalling the approaching end of their eight-year (1935-43) affair.

While out to dinner with the soon-to-be-replaced Dora, Picasso flirts with Françoise Gilot, who has accompanied friend and fellow artist Geneviève Aliquot and famous film actor Alain Cuny (Johnny Flynn) to the Catalan Restaurant. Picasso invites Françoise to come to his studio.

In 1910 in Paris, Pablo and Carles are living with Isidre Nonell (Max Befort) when Manuel Pallarès arrives from Barcelona. He meets Nonell's three lovely nude models: Louise Odette Lenoir (Alexia Giordano), Pablo's favorite, Antoinette Fornerod (Lola Dubus) and Germaine Pichot (Emma Appleton) with whom Carles falls desperately in love although, unfortunately, he is unable to satisfy her in bed. Berthe Weill (Bronagh Gallagher) buys three of Pablo's paintings from Manach (Alex Hassell), his dealer.

Pablo works furiously, painting dance hall scenes at Le Moulin de la Galette. Arthur Huc (Attila Bardoczy), a well-known collector, observes that his work is alive, that he can almost smell the smoke and perfume, that it could be a Degas or a Lautrec. Pablo becomes successful painting dance hall scenes and portraits in the style of popular Impressionist painters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas, but he doesn't want to be known as a copyist and struggles to find his own original style.

Thinking that they both need rest Pablo returns to Málaga with Carles for New Years 1901. But Carles cannot forget Germaine. He returns to Paris, convinces her to join him and their friends for dinner, takes out a pistol with which to shoot Germaine, but misses her and then commits suicide. Returning to Paris, a despondent Pablo begins painting in blues, a time called his Blue Period.

CHAPTER 3 opens in 1902 in Fontenay-Sous-Bois, France with a young wife Fernande Olivier (Aisling Franciosi) escaping by train to Paris after being beaten by her husband. Shivering outside a cafe, Fernande meets Laurent Debienne (Edward Akrout), a sculptor, and begins living with him and modeling for him. Max Jacob (T.R. Knight), French poet, critic and fortune-teller, sees a painting of Pablo's in a gallery owned by Ambroise Vollard (James Garnon) and finds Pablo in his studio. He tells Pablo he will have a large fortune by the time he is 30, and that love will play a great role in his art. Needing a place to live, Pablo accepts Max's offer to share his studio, but when Pablo realizes that Max is gay, he moves out.

In 1903, Pablo says goodbye to Germaine, returns to Barcelona, rents a studio and paints Carles and Germaine as lovers in La Vie, 1903, in hues of blue, having found a way for Carles to have in art what he couldn't have in real life. After finishing the painting Pablo returns to Paris in 1904 and rents a studio in the same Bateau-Lavoir, Montmartre building where Fernande Olivier lives with sculptor Laurent Debienne.

In 1943 Françoise Gilot and Geneviève Aliquot visit Picasso and then he goes to the art gallery where they are exhibiting their paintings. Later Françoise goes to see Picasso again and he tells her she has talent, but her father Emile Gilot (Sebastian Roche) tells her Picasso is a lecher and forbids her to see him. When she refuses, he disowns her and when Geneviève suggests she can't remain a virgin forever, Françoise goes to Picasso and offers herself to him.

CHAPTER 4 opens in 1905 in a bank in Paris. Poet Guillaume Apollinaire (Seth Gabel) is working as a bank clerk but hates it, preferring to read his poetry and get drunk with his friends. His motto, which Pablo adopts, is that as artistes we must demand nothing less than the perpetual immoral subversion of the existing order. Pablo sees the Henri Matisse painting Luxe, Calme et Volupte, using the technique of Pointillism and realizes he has to smash the rules and do something completely new and different.

Apollinaire shows Pablo some harlequins, itinerant circus performers, calling them clowns with evil behind their eyes, devils escaped from Hell, and Pablo sees a new opportunity for self-expression. He casts off the dark hues of his Blue Period, embraces his new subject matter and portrays harlequins in warm hues. His painting Saltimbanques (1905), portraying a family of harlequins in a desolate landscape, is considered a masterpiece of his Rose Period, sometimes called his circus period.

Pablo becomes obsessed with Fernande. He cleans his studio, introduces her to the opium pipe and shows her a little shrine he has created to her, because he worships her. The two fall deeply in love and when Debienne is abusive to Fernande, Pablo offers her shelter, treating her with love and respect. She becomes the first great love of his life and they are together for seven years (1905-1912).

Pablo finishes Saltimbanques and his friend and poet Guillaume Apollinaire composes a poem to accompany it. They take the painting to the Autumn Salon but when Pablo sees Matisse's Woman with a Hat (1905) he withdraws his painting.

In 1943 Françoise Gilot becomes Picasso's lover and artistic muse, although she is 21 and he is 62. Their relationship, both professional and romantic, will last a decade and produce two children, Claude and Paloma. Dora Maar, desperately afraid of losing Picasso, becomes increasingly paranoid, imagining people stealing her bicycle and her dog, and following her in the street.

In 1944 Max Jacob is praying in the Saint-Benoit-Sur-Loire monastery. He has converted to Catholicism but in the eyes of the Germans he is still a Jew as well as a homosexual and they arrest him. Jean Cocteau (Simon Buret) appeals to Picasso to sign a petition to release Max but Picasso refuses. Cocteau finally gets his release approved, but too late. Jacob dies in the Drancy Deportation Camp hospital in March, 1944, just five months before Paris is liberated in August, 1944.

At Picasso's invitation Françoise goes to the art gallery where Dora Maar is exhibiting her paintings, but does not want to meet her, so Picasso invites them both to dinner. Françoise arrives with Andre Beaudin (Timothy Renouf) to make Picasso jealous, and he calls her a little devil. Later that night, unable to make an impression on Picasso, Dora smashes her forehead against a mirror. The police find her wandering along the river and take her to Picasso's where she claims, hysterically, to have been attacked and had her dog and bicycle stolen. Picasso cares for Dora while Françoise decides she cannot live with him.

CHAPTER 5 opens in Brittany, France in 1931 with Françoise's father pushing the young Françoise (Beau Gadsdon) off a cliff into the ocean in a misguided attempt to make her strong in a mans' world. Fifteen years later in 1946 Paris, Picasso visits her in the hospital while she recovers from a broken arm caused by a fall. He tells her he only wants her and invites her to convalesce in a house he has in Golfe-Juan on the Mediterranean. Françoise takes her friend Geneviève Aliquot with her and writes to Picasso not to come. So, of course he does, and attempts to seduce Geneviève, ostensibly so she will leave and Picasso can be alone with Françoise. She does, and Picasso takes Françoise for a drive to visit Henri Matisse (Andrew Buchan). Later in 1946 she finally moves in with Picasso.

In 1905, while young Pablo is challenged by the radical genius of Henri Matisse, his style attracts the attention of new collectors and patrons, including some wealthy Americans living in Paris: Gertrude Stein (Tracee Chimo Pallero) and her brother Leo Stein (Iddo Goldberg). Pablo and Fernande attend one of the Stein's Saturday salons where Fernande flirts with Leo Stein, making Pablo's jealous. Pablo and Fernande both become victims of their own passions and jealousies, which ultimately destroys their relationship.

After five months of trying unsuccessfully to paint Gertrude Stein's portrait, early in 1906 Pablo takes Fernande on a vacation to Gosol, Spain. In a small chapel he sees a stature of the Madonna and Child and knows how to finish his Portrait of Gertrude Stein (1906). When Pablo shows it to her, Gertrude says it looks nothing like her. Pablo replies Not now, but it will.

In 1907 Henri Matisse again shocks the art world with Blue Nude, classified as Fauvist and shown at a Stein Saturday salon. Fernando flirts with a salon guest for whom she used to model. Insane with jealousy Pablo locks her in their studio and she nearly dies when there is a kitchen fire in another studio. Pablo apologizes and since Fernande cannot have children, they adopt 13-year-old Raymonde (Sophia Aparecido-Innes) from a Catholic orphanage. But when Fernande sees that Pablo has sketched the girl partially nude she realizes that even if Pablo's intentions were good, their studio is no place for a child, so they return her to the orphanage.

In September, 1907 Georges Braque (Kerr Logan) visits Pablo and asks to see his new painting, but Pablo refuses him. Braque notices two sculptures but does not realize they were stolen from the Louvre by Gery Pieret (Jack Brett Anderson). Then Pablo visits the Ethnographic Museum in the Trocadero Palace, sees the African masks and realizes they are weapons, just like his brush and paints. And finally he has the theme for the new painting he is working on. Using Fernande as a model along with African masks, he creates Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and shocks the world. Fernande reminds Pablo that he said he wanted to offend, to be abhorrent, and he has done it. The painting becomes the foundation of Cubism, a movement jointly created by Pablo and Georges Braque, in which all the rules of art - light, color, form, perspective - are challenged.

CHAPTER 6 opens in Paris 1946 in a Left Bank restaurant. Françoise is talking with Luc Simon (Tom Cullen). He is jealous of her relationship with Picasso but says he will be teaching at a small art school in Tunis and invites her to visit him. Picasso takes Françoise to the Midi for a vacation but it is 80 km (50 miles) inland from the Mediterranean and he neglects to tell her that it is Dora Maar's home. It is during this trip that Picasso suggests they should make a baby together.

In 1908 Pablo shows his new painting to Georges Braque and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (Lucas Englander), German art collector and notable French art dealer, who wants to exhibit it in his gallery. In an antique shop Pablo discovers Portrait of a Woman (1895) by Henri Rousseau (Tcheky Karyo) an old retiree who had worked as a customs clerk and has never been appreciated as an artist. So Pablo and Apollinaire hold a party to introduce their friends to Rousseau. Young artist Karl-Heinz Wiegels (Gerran Howell) disparages Rousseau and when Pablo defends him and calls Wiegels a fraud, the young man hangs himself in his studio.

On August 21, 1911 the Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre. Gery Pieret is a suspect and he implicates both Apollinaire and Picasso. Apollinaire is charged and later released for lack of evidence. Picasso denies knowing Apollinaire and is not charged. Two years later they are exonerated when the Mona Lisa is recovered in Florence, Italy. The thief, Vincenzo Peruggia, a handyman employed by the Louvre, serves a brief prison sentence for the crime.

CHAPTER 7 opens in Paris in October, 1944 with a reporter asking Picasso to describe why he joined the Communist Party.

In Vallauris, France in 1948 Picasso and Françoise share a home and work. Claude is a toddler and Françoise is pregnant with Paloma. The World Conference of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace is scheduled to be held in Warsaw in August, and Paul Éluard (Ed Stoppard) convinces Picasso that, as a Communist, he has a duty to attend. Picasso spends three weeks in Poland and visits the Auschwitz concentration camp, which deeply affects him.

In Paris in 1912 Pablo and Georges Braque discuss the use of wallpaper in creating a collage. When Pablo discovers that Fernande is having an affair with Ubaldo Oppi, a 22-year-old painter from Bologna, Italy, Pablo begins an affair with one of her friends, Eva Gouel (Eileen O'Higgins). Pablo intends to marry Eva, but she dies of lung cancer before they can marry.

CHAPTER 8 opens in 1917. Pablo designs costumes and sets for the ballet Parade featuring Sergei Diaghilev's (Michael Gor) Ballet Russes, choreographed by Leonide Massine, with a scenario by Jean Cocteau and music by Erik Satie, and meets his first wife, ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova (Sofia Doniants). In 1918 Pablo marries Olga, meets Coco Chanel (Rebecca Calder) and accepts a 50,000 franc commission to paint Margo Rosenberg's (Lisa Dwyer Hogg) picture. Apollinaire succumbs to the Spanish Flu.

In 1949 Picasso tries to mediate between Olga and their son Paulo (Zachary Fall), Marie-Thérèse and their daughter Maya (Violet Young), and Françoise and their two children Claude and Paloma. In Paris in 1951, Picasso begins an affair with model Geneviève Laporte (Margaux Chatelier), and fires his driver of 25 years, Marcel (Bruno Paviot), after he wrecks Picasso's beloved 1930 Hispano-Suiza Type H6B during an outing with his own family.

CHAPTER 9 opens in 1927. Picasso realizes that Olga is more interested in Persian carpets and chandeliers than his art and so he finds a new muse and lover in Marie-Thérèse Walter. In Paris in 1935 Olga finds out about Marie-Thérèse, who tells Picasso she is pregnant and demands that he marry her. Picasso asks Olga for a divorce but when he discovers she will own half of all of his artworks he refuses to divorce her. In the same year, he discovers that Marie-Thérèse no longer inspires him and Paul Eluard, poet and one of the founders of the Surrealism movement , introduces him to photographer and artist Dora Maar.

In 1952, Picasso enlists his son Paulo to find a house in Saint-Tropez where he can spend time with his new model Geneviève Laporte. Françoise finds out about Geneviève and accepts a job in Paris to design costumes for a new ballet. Marie-Thérèse's teenage daughter Maya (Athena Strates) baby-sits for Claude and Paloma with Picasso in the South of France. Kostas Alexos (Dimitri Leonidas) who has been trying to seduce Françoise for years, finally succeeds after the grand opening of her ballet and, in 1953, she leaves Picasso after a decade and two children. Madame Suzanne Ramie (Anna Savva) who owns the ceramic studio in Vallauris where Picasso has his ceramics fired, introduces him to her cousin Jacqueline Roque (Valentina Bellè)

CHAPTER 10 opens a year later, in 1954. Picasso convinces Jacqueline to quit her job and move into his mansion, but when Françoise brings Claude and Paloma for a visit and tells Picasso about Luc Simon, art teacher and her lover, Picasso confesses he made a mistake and wants her back. The following year Picasso buys Villa La Californie, near Cannes, and Françoise and Luc marry. But after Picasso demands the return of all of his paintings, Françoise realizes that if something were to happen to her, Claude and Paloma would not be cared for. Picasso's lawyer suggest that if she were to divorce Luc, he would marry her, but then, in March 1961 in the Vallauris town hall, Picasso marries Jacqueline Roque. The same year they move to Mougins, near Cannes for the final 12 years of his life, and when Picasso no longer wants to paint Jacqueline he begins to paint himself. In 1962 Françoise divorces Luc, moves to New York, and in 1970 marries Dr. Jonas Salk. 

The last six minutes of the final episode, as Picasso lies on his death bed, are devoted to a poignant fantasy reunion of all the members of his extended family: his second and current wife Jacqueline, first wife Olga, former lovers Fernande, Eva, Marie-Thérèse and Dora, his children and grandchildren, and even Carles Casagemas, the friend of his youth who had ended his life so many years earlier. It is a beautiful way to end the story of the life of the great artist.

Labels: biography, drama, history
IMDb 83/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=57, viewers=27)
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