![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It’s a very modern movie about the idea of being Emily Brontë, misfit of the moors. So little is known about Emily’s actual life and times that the picture is free to indulge in thrillingly salacious speculations and semi-informed attempts to explore the roiling passions and mercurial contradictions that might have inspired our socially awkward wallflower to put pen to paper. O’Connor’s film - for which she also wrote the screenplay - is likewise mostly made-up stuff. Beyond being an index of backhanded compliments, the surviving Brontë sister’s words kicked off a legacy of wild speculations and dopey literary conspiracy theories fueled by chauvinism, intellectual snobbery and our culture’s unfortunate disinclination to believe that sometimes people are just really good at making stuff up. All artist biopics are to some extent or another attempts to “solve” their subjects, and the mysteries of how an informally educated and unworldly homebody like Emily Brontë came to write such a singularly radical Gothic romance have been swirling around ever since Charlotte outed author Ellis Bell as her recently deceased sibling way back in 1850. “How did you write ‘Wuthering Heights?’” pinch-faced buzzkill Charlotte Brontë asks her dying sister during the opening moments of “Emily,” actress Frances O’Connor’s atmospheric and welcomely irreverent directorial debut. ![]() Emma Mackey in "Emily." (Courtesy Obscured Pictures) ![]()
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