thoughts spurred by new BBC Emma!

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One day, I'd like to post about these things:

1) The lecture I heard once on how Emma is a maturation of Sense and Sensibility.
2) The Gwenyth Paltrow Emma versus the Kate Beckinsale one (*waves flag for latter*)
3) How girls in period costume with modern accoutrement make me feel funny (a la here:

Comments

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I Capture the Castle was actually the first thing I saw her in! I actually haven't read the book, but I was a fan of Dodie Smith from--yes--101. I didn't like the movie that much, but from it I guessed that I wouldn't have liked the book, because the story isn't terribly compelling to me. But for all I know it was a quality adaptation of the novel. Mostly I remember it because I thought Garai was hot.

Anywho, she does play Emma, and I like her quite a lot better than both Paltrow (not a fan at all) and Beckinsale (AFAIK Emma is the only half-way decent thing she's done). I haven't seen Garai play a terribly diverse set of characters, though--mostly I've seen her in Amelia Sedley type roles (she was in that horrible Witherspoon Vanity Fair, and was the only thing I liked about it. I knew I'd hate it, but I'm a big Major Dobbin fan; I had to go)--which now I think about it is not so very different from Cordelia. Her character in Horation Hornblower XVI--I mean Amazing Grace was also similar. Dunno if she can pull of Emma's snark and conceit (Beckinsale did but didn't have the lovableness. Paltrow was mush). Though I have high hopes I'm expected Garai to be too watered down and sweet (a sort of not-quite-as-horrendous Witherspoon's Becky Sharp).

I'm not really looking forward to the Mr. Knightley. He was Edmund in the '99 Mansfield Park, and I found him v. lackluster there (then again so is the character and so was the script).