Review: Frances O’Connor makes a striking directorial debut with a provocatively revisionist biography of Emily Brontë
The conceit has an inevitable seductive appeal, as Emily — called “the strange one” by her neighbors — grows from a socially awkward misfit into a first-rate poet and writer, her talents largely hidden until they come under the appreciative gaze of her father’s curate, William Weightman .
O’Connor leans heavily into that fusing of the inner and natural worlds: There’s lots of twirling about in “Emily,” often amid drenching rainstorms while cavorting on those aforementioned dales. But for the sometimes hysterically pitched emotion of the movie — especially when the soaring choral musical score kicks in — “Emily” is at its best when it quiets down, allowing viewers to see Emily’s world as she might have perceived it.
The arrival of Weightman on the scene promises to relieve Emily of such drudgery; so do the high jinks of her brother Branwell , a drinker and opium dabbler whom O’Connor depicts as bringing his little sister along on his not-quite-reputable escapades.
Dreamy and haunted, a product of hyper-dramatic atmosphere as much as the social and family dynamics of her time, the Emily of O’Connor’s telling emerges as a figure with spirit, magnetism and mystery. “Emily” is less a portrait of an artist as a young woman than the finding and freeing of a rebel heart. The movie may or may not be entirely true to Brontë, but it is surpassingly, and often deliciously, Brontë-esque.
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