keng5

I really enjoyed this version of "Emma" and my pleasure was largely due to the very convincing performance by Doran Goodwin in the central role. She was so much better than Kate Beckinsdale in the ITV version who it seems to me lacked the necessary vivacity and personality to carry the role. This Emma was very expressive, arch and satirical, very much, I Imagine, as Jane Austen must have been herself. And unlike the ITV version, which was abominably miscast (excepting Mark Strong's Mr Knightley), this casting was near perfect.

My only complaint is that too much of the action took place indoors, which made it a little claustrophobic and too much like a stage play. We were not allowed to see the village or any exterior shots of Miss Bates dwelling, just room doors opening and closing. The only time we saw anyone in a carriage was during the trip to Box Hill and that was all too brief.

But the indoor scenes were magnificent and authentic looking, too good I'm sure to be just studio sets; they must all have been filmed on location, perhaps in the very large house pictured in the opening shots.

If like me you like French films, you will like this one. There is no plot to speak of and no time wasted in car-chases and violent action sequences. There is just fascinating dialogue and the interaction of interesting characters, plus the expression of real emotion and nuances of feeling. There is an intimacy with the characters that is typically French and which the Americans rarely achieve. At the end of the film you feel you know and understand these people and are wiser for having known them.

I loved the performance of Catherine Frot in the film. She was delicious and made the character of Yolande incredibly appealing and lovable. What a crying shame she should have shackled herself to such a self-centred, unappreciative husband. He was the luckiest man alive and yet too obtuse to realise it. How appallingly sad.

The high-light of the film for me was the little dance Yolande had with the quiet, philosophic bar-man Denis, played by Jean Pierre Darroussin, who, revealing his kind heart, offered to dance with her when her insensitive husband refused - despite the fact that it was supposed to be her birthday celebration. Denis's skillful dancing surprised them all, and disclosed a whole new aspect of his personality. There is a touching moment at the bar when Yolande, suspecting Betty's romantic interest and trying to encourage it, says to her with a lovely winsome expression; "He's a good dancer." And at the end of the film when Betty and Denis are seen to declare their love for each other, she says delightedly, to the chagrin of her snobbish and spiteful mother-in-law; "You know what this means? It means he's going to be part of the family."

A young girl of thirteen is not having a very happy time at school and, after having some magic dust sprinkled on her, wishes she was thirty. Hey presto! she wakes up the next morning to find her wish come true; she's now thirty! But that doesn't mean that she's a girl of thirteen in the body of a woman of thirty; it just means that all those years in between have been erased from her memory. The woman she now is has worked her way to near the top of the tree and is the design editor of an up-market fashion magazine having out-gunned her school tormentor who's in a more junior position.

You have to suspend disbelief a huge amount in this film. Quite apart from the main ridiculous premise, she meets again her school sweetheart, played by Mark Ruffalo, who doesn't recognise her and who we are asked to accept she hasn't seen or spoken to for the past seventeen years, even though he lives just around the corner and works as as fashion photographer in the same business. She tries her very best to make him fall in love with her and they have a nice time together, but unfortunately he is engaged to be married. Does she get him in the end? Impossible too say; the end of the film is a puzzle.

I found all this very difficult to swallow. Why for instance doesn't she show the slightest curiosity about what she has been doing for the past seventeen years? But if you can put all this nonsense on one side, the film is very entertaining and has a very enjoyable dance sequence. However the whole film rests on the brilliant performance of Jennifer Garner and the film is worth seeing for her performance alone.