Author: Rosalynn Try-Hane

This latest adaptation of Emma. directed by Autumn de Wilde should be viewed as Austen for the Instagram generation heavily filtered.

Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a spoilt young lady of 21 years of age who has never had to struggle or suffer any hardship. To fill her days she likes to meddle and matchmake in others lives.

It’s picture perfect with a dazzling array of filters: indigence, charm, pride, frivolity but crucially with all the subtlety stripped out so requiring little industry of the audience perhaps just to keep their eyes open for the 125 minutes run time. The director Autumn de Wilde’s background is in music videos and so the imagery and colour is spot on but the direction is too fast for the subtlety of Austen’s words.

The overbearing country/regency soundtrack is an assault on the ears. The acting is fine and Mr Knightley (Johnny Flynn) certainly tries to give another Austen hero, last century’s Mr Darcy (Colin Firth), a good run for his money but doesn’t quite do it.

Any adaptation should have something new or take a different look at the originating text. This version is intent on girl power and feelings. The frothy feelings and vulnerability that the male characters display are meant to show that not all men are brutes.

There is certainly an attempt or at least a flirtation with some deeper idea but neither the script or direction commit and so what the audience is left with is a rather simplistic and superficial adaptation of Austen’s Emma.

Emma. is released in cinemas across the UK on 14 February.

After The Wedding is an ambitious script that tried to tie lots of themes together but it didn’t know which theme or type of film it wanted to be. Strong acting throughout but didn’t really achieve the emotional fireworks it was so clearly after.

After The Wedding tells the story of Isabel (Michelle Williams) who runs an orphanage in India which is desperate need of funding to help the underprivileged children. She travels to New York to meet wealthy benefactor, Theresa (Julianne Moore) who tells her she will make a decision after her Grace’s, her daughter, wedding.

However, everything is not as it seems because Isabel, Theresa and Theresa’s husband Oscar Carlson know each other much better than it first appears.

The issue with any remake is that it needs to be fresh and saying something different than the original otherwise there is no point. After The Wedding is a remake of the original Danish film. Writer and Director Bart Freundlich decided to make the central male character a female character as played by Michelle Williams.

It could have been a really interesting film about women choosing the lives they want unapologetically and living for themselves. However, Freundlich lost his nerve and what we instead get is a film that doesn’t know which story it wants to tell and so fails to deliver the emotional gut punch it is so desperately after and lacks all the nuance of the original and in many respects far superior film by Susanne Bier of the same name.

The acting is strong but the film, if the device of the Indian orphanage is removed, might as well as been a nondescript love triangle film set in upper middle class New York society.

After The Wedding is released in cinemas across the UK on Friday 1 November.

Brittany Runs A Marathon is that feel good film, completely unexpected and a total surprise because it has substance that will have you cheering at the end.

Brittany Forgler (played pitch perfectly by Jillian Bell) is in her late twenties, failing at life and morbidly obese except she doesn’t realise that until she goes to the doctor and gets the shock of her life after standing on the scales. She uses humour to deflect from the banality of her everyday life and avoid seeing the choices she’s made result in where she is today.

Does Brittany; run a marathon, figure out who she is, fix up her underemployment situation, start setting healthy boundaries, get rid of toxic friends and above all get healthy – after all that that New York City Marathon won’t run itself!

You’d be forgiven during the opening scenes of Brittany Runs A Marathon of thinking: “oh no please don’t say here we go again” and just like as life is unpredictable this film takes the audience on a brilliantly unexpected journey. These are the types of films we want to see more of complex female characters who don’t just look real but, especially for a feel good movie, are not looking for love nor are completely likeable – she judges people just in the way she’s felt judged over the years and those scenes aren’t sugar coated at all. 

Brittany Runs A Marathon is quite an achievement from first time screenwriter and director Paul Downs Colaizzo. It is inspired by the story of his friend Brittany. Maybe it’s due to this that he does something that shows just what good writing irrespective of gender – he manages to get inside of the female head. Brittany on screen doesn’t feel cliched or contrived just brutally honest and relatable so much so that I felt inspired to sign up to run a half marathon. What Colaizzo and Bell manage to do is ensure the audience is never laughing at Brittany by avoiding the cheap, tired tropes and jokes.

The supporting cast is superb too especially because they all have a story that doesn’t take any from the central one but equally doesn’t feel like a cinematic device. They are all memorable. However, it is Bell who carries this film not least because we watch not only her physical but emotional evolution on screen, yes she really is losing weight through running on the screen. It is a feel good film about loving yourself, self worth, and self image and we want more of this, please.

It’s sassy, stylish, got substance and inspiring. You will laugh lots. Go run and see this at the cinema.

Brittany Runs A Marathon is released in cinemas across the UK on 1 November 2019.