The Mixed-Up Matches of Miss Emma Woodhouse

In late Decembers of my youth, my family often read Dave Barry’s Year in Review out loud as a Bush-era coping mechanism. Barry’s brand of humor hasn’t held up for me across the reviewable years, but you know whose has? Jane Austen’s. She could make anything funny: Heartbreak. Inheritance laws. That insufferable neighbor. Our most mortifying mistakes. Concussions. You name it.

December 16, 2025, was Austen’s 250th birthday, so in honor of her gimlet eye and her unique brand of optimism—best summarized as “This system is f****ed but you can still find love and/or get that bag”—I present the first Austen adaptation I ever experienced: 1996’s Emma, based on the 1815 novel.

Meet Emma Woodhouse (a pre-Goopified Gwyneth Paltrow). Per the book’s opening sentence, she’s “handsome, clever, rich,” and twenty-one. (Paltrow was twenty-four when the movie came out, which is pretty young to have done the best work of your career.) Emma’s governess/bff—an actual job description in Regency-era England—has just married a wealthy neighbor, so Emma’s now ALSO

1. lonely

2. bored

3. left to her own chaotic devices

She decides to get someone else married off, for funsies. Not herself. She likes her current setup: running her needy hypochondriac dad’s household and consistently being the smartest person in the room, neither of which is kosher for nineteenth-century wives. But she will deploy her keen mind on a charitable mission—finding a wife for the horny vicar, Mr. Elton (a legendary Alan Cumming).

Without her governess/bff, Mrs. Weston (Greta Scacchi), to advise against this, the only voice of reason is family friend Mr. Knightley (Jeremy Northam). Casual viewers of this movie allege that Knightley’s connection to the Woodhouses goes unexplained, but early on Emma asks him, “How is my sister? Is your brother giving her the respect we Woodhouse ladies deserve?” which clearly establishes Knightley as her brother-in-law-IN-LAW. Keep up, people.

“Mr. Elton is a man of twenty-six,” Knightley reminds Emma. “He knows how to take care of himself.” Cue hoots of laughter from the viewing party. Emma responds with the noncanonical but indisputable line, “Men know nothing about their hearts, whether they be six-and-twenty or six-and-eighty. Excepting you, of course, Father.”¹

Sidenote: Romantic fanfic about Mr. Woodhouse undoubtedly exists. The minute this man has access to anti-anxiety meds and a whole lot of hand sanitizer, it’s Game On.

Plenty of Austenites dislike Paltrow’s Emma. Not because she’s arch, snobbish, or oblivious, all of which are canonical traits. But because, I think, she seems mature. Some folks prefer an Emma who’s too childish to understand the consequences of her actions, but that’s not an Emma I want to see MARRIED (spoiler) by the end of the story. That’s an Emma who needs to date herself for a few years. This Emma is a full-fledged adult, thriving in a world that’s actively encouraged her to turn out this way: confident in her superiority, condescendingly benevolent toward those she considers beneath her, certain she alone knows what’s best for everyone. Welcome to Being Rich! The mindset is a feature, not a bug.

And it’s reinforced by everyone in Emma’s life, from her doting father to her doting governess/bff to her doting neighbors, especially the down-on-their-luck Bateses. Miss Bates, a middle-aged chatterbox with a heart of gold (an impeccable Sophie Thompson), adores Emma; her mother, Mrs. Bates (Phyllida Law, Thompson’s own mother), never gets a single word in and so inevitably has no complaints about Emma. Even Knightley, Emma’s frequent critic, plainly believes her birth, education, and aptitudes make her Better Than Most People.

The only true challenger of Emma’s worldview is Jane Fairfax (Polly Walker), Mrs. Bates’s orphaned granddaughter, who manages to be beautiful, accomplished, and likable while also being Poor. Jane’s mere existence rankles Emma because it reminds her she’s not living in a meritocracy. Luckily she’s mastered the foremost skills of the wealthy: denial, denial, inventing flaws for rivals, and denial.

Sidenote: This Emma is also, as Knightley says, “capable of great kindness.” In addition to wanting the best for her friends, she unassumingly helps out disadvantaged community members and is warmly polite to folks of all income brackets. She’s not wholly self-absorbed, and she has flashes of self-awareness throughout the movie, showing she’s capable of growth. Not every adaptation pulls off this balance. Cough, 2020, cough.

Emma decides to set up Mr. Elton with her new acquaintance, Harriet Smith (a delightful Toni Collette), whose canonical age (seventeen) the movie prudently neglects to establish. Harriet’s the complete package:

• beautiful

• sweet

• not very bright

• worshipful of the ground Emma walks on

• relatably prone to flop sweat when nervous

She’s also illegitimate and Not Rich, but Emma figures she can handwave away these respectability issues by bestowing her stamp of approval on Harriet. Harriet is now her bff. The mission objective shifts from A) getting Elton married to B) getting Harriet married to Elton.

• What

• could

• go

• wrong?

First thing to go wrong: Harriet gets a proposal from Robert Martin, a farmer she really likes. Emma, deeming him too low-class, convinces Harriet to kick him to the curb. Knightley’s like Wtffff that would’ve been a great match for someone Like Her! and, snobbery aside, he’s not wrong: Martin’s house has TWO parlors. He’s got EIGHT cows. Lock that DOWN, Harriet.

Sidenote: Emma’s main argument against Martin, other than that he’s insufficiently fancy, is that he forgot to read a book Harriet recommended to him. Like this man doesn’t have other things on his mind! He’s got eight cows to feed!! Cut him some slack!!!

Emma thinks Harriet can do better, because Elton’s being flirty AF. What she’s not clocking is that every alleged compliment to Harriet is actually meant to flatter her, Harriet’s Creator (in high society). Only when Elton—TWIST—proposes to Emma herself does she register her mistake.

Cumming’s turn as Elton is a performance for the ages. Between Austen’s source material and the work of director/screenwriter Douglas McGrath, he’s got great lines, but his god-tier delivery is what sells them. Some standouts:

• Speaking to Harriet: “I love… I simply LOVE… celery root.”

• Plopping down between Knightley and Emma mid-conversation on a settee designed for two: “I hope I’m not intruding.”

• Addressing Harriet’s obscure, inheritance-deficient background: “Everybody has their level.”

Comedy gold, but not Emma’s cup of tea. After turning down an offended Elton, she confesses the mix-up to Harriet, who promptly forgives her but is still super bummed. Even a batch of puppies can’t cheer her up; that’s how dire the situation is. Emma pivots to mission objective C: Getting Harriet married. To somebody rich and hot. At All Costs.

Enter Frank Churchill (Ewan McGregor, sporting what he later called “the world’s worst wig”), Mr. Weston’s son from his first marriage. He has a different last name because he was adopted by rich relatives.² Let’s evaluate:

• Rich—check (pending his sickly aunt’s death)

• Hot—check (the wig is a challenge we can overcome)

But Emma doesn’t immediately view him as a prospect for Harriet, because when a single Ewan McGregor walks into your single life, your first thought isn’t “Can I set him up with my friend?” Frank’s flirting is so blatant that even she can’t miss it, and she’s into it.

I was probably eight or nine when I first saw this movie, so every twist shocked me as much as it shocked Emma. Each time she thought she’d figured something out, I was like “Oh okay, cool.” So when Emma tells her diary, “He loves me” and reports she has “some sort of headache so I must be in love with him as well,” I took her word for it. Made sense to me. Ten-ish minutes later when she informs the diary, “I am not in love with Frank,” I was like “Jeez! Make up your mind!”—thus missing the entire point of the story but also positioning Emma to lose “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?”

Meanwhile Elton, still resenting Emma’s rejection, has decided that snagging a rich wife is the best revenge. The newly-minted Mrs. Elton (Juliet Stevenson, in another incredible performance) must now be admitted to the awkward friend group comprised of this town’s middle and upper classes. She’s the funhouse-mirror version of Emma: a rampant know-it-all whose ego is unmitigated by intelligence, taste, or warmheartedness. She claims expertise—under the guise of “My friends say…”—in the following areas:

• health and wellness

• sandwich making

• fashion

• music

• Diablo IV (jk)

Under her bluster and aggressive faux-friendliness, she’s transparently keen to outshine Emma, who’s driven to deliver the noncanonical line, “She proposed we form a musical club. Is it possible that Mr. Elton met her while doing charitable work in a mental infirmary?” Nevertheless Emma concludes, “There is only one thing to do with a person as impossible as she… I must throw a party for her.”

This sets up one of my favorite scenes.

KNIGHTLEY: I can think of nothing less appealing than a night of watching other people dance. [Throws a stick for his dog to fetch.]

EMMA: Then you shall have to dance yourself.

KNIGHTLEY: …I’d rather fetch that stick.

EMMA: I’ll try to remember to bring it to the ball.

KNIGHTLEY: I just want to stay here where it’s cozy. [Camera pans to his gigantic house.]

At first, this party’s a disaster for nearly everyone:

• Jane, whom Mrs. Elton has latched onto as a Project (making Emma’s patronage of Harriet look downright healthy by comparison)

• Harriet, who has nobody to dance with

• Mrs. Weston, who inexplicably encourages Elton to dance with Harriet, only for Elton to rudely decline within Harriet’s earshot and presumably prompt Mrs. Weston to question everything about her life choices that led her to think this was a good idea

• Emma, who feels terrible for Harriet

Until!!! Knightley gallantly dances with Harriet and THE PARTY IS SAVED. Afterward Knightley and a grateful Emma have a heart-to-heart, with Emma owning up to her blunders and Knightley assuring her she’s not totally clueless (forgive me). They cap off the evening by dancing with each other.

Next, in the only scene that’s aged poorly, Harriet and Emma get jumped by some Romani people in an attempted mugging. Frank chases them off, and Emma has a lightbulb moment: Harriet + Frank = Perfect Match. When Harriet hints she has a new crush, Emma—without naming Frank—encourages her to go for it.

Immediately afterward, the most upsetting incident in period drama history occurs.

My whole viewing party knew it was coming. We all braced ourselves. Are you braced? Okay. Here’s what happens:

• The Friend Group has a picnic.

• Mrs. Elton pressures Jane to accept a job as a governess (no “bff” corollary) that would require Jane to move away.

• Frank interrupts to suggest a game: Everyone will tell Emma one very clever thing, or two moderately clever things, OR three very dull things, and she must laugh at them all. This is, for the record, absolutely deranged, taking the accursed genre of icebreakers to a whole new level.

• The Eltons go F that, and by implication, F you, Emma, and leave.

• Emma’s stung by their rudeness and by the reminder of the mess she created with Elton.

• Miss Bates cheerfully chirps that she’s all in on this game: “I shall be sure to say three very dull things as soon as I open my mouth.”

• Emma snaps, “Yes, dear, but you’ll be limited as to number: only three.”

The moment this hits Miss Bates in the gut and Emma realizes what she’s done is harder to watch than the first 25 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. What’s worse than getting your intestines blown up by N*zis? Thoughtlessly saying something hurtful that you can never unsay.

Emma clings to her security blanket of denial until Knightley confronts her. In a near-canonical rendition of his famous “Badly done!!” lecture, he emphasizes her impact on Miss Bates: “humbling her and laughing at her in front of people who would be guided by your treatment of her.” While Emma breaks down in tears of shame, he says he hopes eventually “you will do my faith in you greater justice than you do it now.”

After this wake-up call, Emma sets out to make amends with Miss Bates but also to recalibrate her whole Deal. Knightley leaves town to visit his brother (Emma’s brother-in-law), and she hopes he’ll return to find her a humbler, more thoughtful version of herself.

While he’s gone, the Friend Group learns that—TWIST—Frank has been secretly engaged to Jane for months. His rich aunt would’ve disapproved, but she’s dead now and he’s got her money, so SURPRISE, SUCKERS. His flirtation with Emma was a red herring. And there goes Emma’s Plan C.

Harriet’s unbothered. Because TWIST: Frank’s not her crush. Knightley is.

Which is when it dawns on Emma that TWIST: she’s in love with Knightley.

But Harriet’s convinced that Knightley’s into her. Emma, instead of recalling how Harriet once got stumped by a riddle that required her to put the words “court” and “ship” together, assumes Harriet knows what she’s talking about. She figures Knightley’s consulting his brother about marrying Harriet. “I hope John advises him to be careful,” she rages noncanonically to Mrs. Weston. “After all, we know nothing about her parents; they could be pirates!” (Another fanfic I would read.)

Sidenote: Blame Austen for Emma turning on Harriet the moment she becomes a threat. The book even suggests that Emma’s biggest misstep was befriending a social inferior in the first place. The film at least softens Emma’s jealousy with humor, as when Emma replaces the portrait of Harriet on her wall with a painting of a dog.

Knightley returns and, after some contractually stipulated miscommunication, confesses his love—for Emma. (Not a twist if you’ve been watching his facial expressions for the past 110 minutes.)

This adaptation understandably comes under fire for omitting Austen’s banger, “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” But in lieu of this line, Knightley puts himself on equal footing with Emma—acknowledging that, while she’s certainly made mistakes, he’s often been dickish himself. “Maybe it is our imperfections,” he says noncanonically but swoon-worthily, “which make us so perfect for each other.” She enthusiastically accepts his proposal, only to panic about how her father will react to being left alone. So Knightley offers to live at her place! Everyone wins!³

Except Harriet. But don’t worry.

Because TWIST: Robert Martin proposes to Harriet AGAIN and this time she says yes! Her friendship with Emma is salvaged! Everybody’s now in a happy straight marriage with social equals! England prospers!

Plot, pacing, and structure: 4. This movie is as chaotic as its protagonist. There’s an opening and closing voiceover from Mrs. Weston, a diary voiceover and other random inner monologues from Emma, and a last-minute fourth-wall breach by Mrs. Elton. Mid-scene jump cuts abound. The telling doesn’t always match the showing. And yet it works! The dialogue sparkles with a smooth combo of fidelity to the source material and light modernization. The plot smartly compresses the book’s events. The emotional arcs land. The Rachel Portman soundtrack DELIVERS.

Characters: 5. Paltrow’s Emma is often playing to the back row but has touchingly human moments too, and her comic chops are unmatched. This adaptation also has the best Knightley, the best Elton and Mrs. Elton, and the best Harriet (a character who can easily come across as too thuddingly dull to be sympathetic, or simply, as in 2020, too freaking young to be getting MARRIED).

Historical accuracy: 4. No big deviations from the original 1815 plot. No heinous costume, prop, or set choices (though surely plenty for experts to nitpick). As with the source material, the biggest inaccuracies are those of omission; it’s Emma’s world and the Poors just live in it, with occasional cameos to receive charity soup.

Themes: 4. I deduct one point for “Let’s not think too hard about class inequality” but endorse the rest: Don’t assume you know better than everyone else. Don’t assume you fully know yourself. Love is neither something that just happens to you nor something you can engineer, but a choice that feels right. Find friends who’ll be honest with you; be a friend people can trust. A growth mindset is essential to happiness. And when you’re down, look at some puppies.

Thanks for hanging in there with me through this Badly Done year, friends. May the next year do our faith in it justice. (To quote Anne Lamott, who could’ve been speaking directly to Emma: “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” Instead of thinking we know anything for sure, let’s hope and strive for good stuff.)

1  No, I will not be taking questions about the sixteen-year age gap between Knightley and Emma, or the fact that he’s known her all her life, or the way Book Knightley facetiously estimates he’s been in love with her since she was thirteen. Nope nope nope. Lalalalala can’t hear youuuu. 

2  This happened to one of Austen’s brothers, so it really was A Thing.

3  In the book, Mr. Woodhouse only agrees to this after thieves steal the Westons’ turkeys. He figures that with a big strong rich man living on his property, no Poors will dare come for HIS turkeys. Love and resource-hoarding conquer all!