Reviews
Longlegs (2024)
Utterly Banal and Ridiculous
I keep telling myself to stop trying to find decent movies. I should have listened. This film is so utterly silly and boring that I almost turned it off, but I stuck it out to the end and now wish I hadn't. First of all, it's a very bad rip-off of Hannibal. Cut-price Clarice. Cut-price Jack. Cut-price Dr Chilton. Cut-price Baltimore Asylum for the Criminally Insane. Very cut-price FBI if this is what they've come to. This is the sort of film where the protagonist (Clarice) receives a note from the killer, but doesn't report this to her boss. She decodes the satanic letters the killer has been leaving at each scene, but doesn't reveal this to her boss until she picks up a new letter at a crime scene and can read it. It's the sort of film that thinks atmosphere comes from having no lighting on set. Every single set, whether in houses, offices, interrogation rooms or libraries was in darkness. Who sits in their own house decoding satanic letters in the dark?
The lead actress was awful. She genuinely had no expression or reaction to anything. I kept thinking that the twist would be that she was dreaming, but apparently not.
Every single aspect of this film was annoying, overdone, unrealistic, predicable and also weirdly boring. FBI agent (Clarice) is invited into her boss's home late one evening. As if. So unlikely. But it has to happen here for her to meet the daughter, who immediately... wait for this... invites her to 'come and see my bedroom'. And everyone smiles. So cute. Who the heck allows a colleague to go into their daughter's bedroom? This scene was so weird and creepy, but it's needed in the script so the little girl can next invite her to her birthday party. Such an obvious set up. No guesses where this movie's final scene will be. So it was actually quite funny that when Clarice does turn up for the 'party' it's just the parents and the daughter. Some party, huh.
Honestly, give this one a miss. It's too stupid to waste time on. I wasted mine for you. But it's midwinter here in NZ, I was doing some tapestry and the fire was lit, so all in all, this nonsense was just the background noise it deserved to be.
Walden (2023)
Dumb, Slow and Weird
First and foremost, this is not a crime drama. If it's anything, I suppose it's a vigilante film, but it fails at that too. The movie has a very strong vibe of Pushing Daisies or even The Truman Show: odd visual style, music, and quirky characters. The main character, Walden, is a dumpy, ugly and entirely bland man who suddenly decides to become a 'vigilante', grotesquely murdering people who have gotten away with horrendous crimes. I usually love this kind of film. The Equalizer, John Wick, Death Wish, Law Abiding Citizen--they all had great plots and satisfying action. This movie just dragged, showcasing more its bizarre dialogue, costume choices and unlikely characters over and above any interesting action. Blink and you'd miss the revenge in every case.
I genuinely don't know if this was supposed to be comedy or drama. Are we supposed to believe this non-entity, Walden, who has never touched a gun in his life, can, when the script requires him to, pull a weapon fluidly from its holster and shoot dead two muggers? No time on the range. Never held it or shot it before? Are we supposed to believe that a weak man who felt guilty hitting a robber over the head with a bottle can almost the same night tie a woman to a bed and go Annie Wilkes on her with a baseball bat? Who writes these dreadful, dreadful movies?
In summary, give this boring mess a miss.
The Staircase (2022)
Confusing, Very Slow and Lacking Real Drama
Like many other people reviewing here, I found this so confusing to watch that I lost interest and really struggled to finish all eight episodes. At one point, a woman is standing up in a courtroom making a speech, and when I glanced away for a moment and then looked back, she was making the same speech but in different clothes, different hair and everyone in the courtroom had gone somewhere else. I think this was supposed to be a clever device to show time passing? But as these events spread over sixteen years and the show constantly jumped every few minutes to random moments in those years, it was totally impossible to follow what was happening. Some of what we were seeing was only supposition, and so the same scene got replayed and replayed differently.
Michael and Kathleen had five children, and it wasn't until about episode four that I worked out who was who and who was related to whom. I'm still not entirely sure I've got it right. I can only assume that the makers of the series assumed that everyone who'd watch it would know the story already. Not so. I came to this never having heard of the case and I really needed more explanation and linear storytelling.
Most people rate Colin Firth's performance highly in this series, but if he has captured the real Michael Peterson, then clearly I'm mising something. The man Firth portrays is a liar, a cheat, emotionally abusive and manipulative. Worst of all, he's a sponger and a user of women, happy to marry them for their money, but leave (or murder) them when they become inconvenient for him. He has no redeeming graces in this mini series portrayal of him. He cheats on his wife with men in sordid, disgusting sex shops, or with male prostitutes. He's alternately angry, or lecherous.
For the audience to really care how Kathleen died, she needed to be made a sympathetic character, but again the series failed to capture anything but a high-achiever, bitter woman trying to have it all. As her sister astutely pointed out to her: Kathleen has to be the best at everything. It doesn't make for a character we can root for.
I wasted many evenings watching this. It's depressing, drags, but mostly confuses.
Reacher: Fly Boy (2024)
Ritchson is Reacher
The second season of this excellent show is even better than the first. Alan Ritchson totally embodies both the look and spirit of Jack Reacher. In fact, I'd go as far as to say he's better than the original Reacher in the books. He brings a sense of grace and humour to a brutal man, which explains the intense loyalty people feel towards him. In the books, Reacher is much colder, less attractive.
The supporting cast in this series is magnificent. Domenick Lombardozzi particularly killed as the New York detective Russo. Maria Sten owns the part of Neagley.
The filming is superb, with excellent sets, a wonderful soundtrack and perfect costuming.
This is a faultless series. I was gripped from start to finish. It's brutal, funny, heart-rending, exciting. What more can you want from a TV show?
Saltburn (2023)
Extremely Engaging But Not Without Its Flaws
Overall, this is a really enjoyable film. The settings are incredible. The cast is amazing. The plot really draws you in and has a wonderful menace about it the whole time. However, I do think the ending was just a little over the top to remain credible.
The Kira Knightly movie of Pride & Prejudice had to be given an 'American' alternative ending. Cabin At The End of the World, which has the most wonderfully enigmatic ending in the book, is totally rewritten for the movie, and presumably for American audiences. The ambiguity of Saltburn throughout is its great charm, and yet in the last minute we have stuff we suspected and feared laid out for us. The mystique was lost. How much more subtle it would have been to have Oliver enigmatically mention to someone that he was rather good with bicycles, or that, indeed, being able to make yourself sick was a very useful trick...
That aside, I highly recommend this film to anyone who likes complex psychological twisters.
The Lodge (2019)
Improves on Second Watch
I'll get the major cons out of the way first. This movie suffers from the usual problem Hollywood film always seem to have -- no money to afford electricity. Most of the movie is shot entirely in the dark, so goodness knows what happened in those scenes. Also, one or two key bits of dialogue that explain what's really happening are totally lost to mumbling.
However, overall, this film really did improve on second watching. Once you know what the story is, you spot all sorts of little bits of detail that make the whole thing make sense. But more than this, my empathy with Grace, the protagonist and victim, grew exponentially during this second watch. She comes over as an almost wholly sympathetic character. Little things like the carefully wrapped presents she brings and hides make her rather loveable. Her love for her dog and what he represents to her is very moving. She's a very damaged person, but unfortunately for her, she gets entangled with other very damaged people and hell hath no wrath like grieving children.
There's only one jump scare in this movie, but it's a good one. The rest of the film is a more slow psychological horror about the power of grief and early childhood trauma. And human fragility.
I highly recommend this to anyone who likes their horror thought-provoking and real rather than shock-horror jump scares. This clearly borrows from Hereditary: almost shamelessly copies much of the atmostphere of that film with the dark house, the dolls' house, the cult, the dolls, the camera work inside the dolls' house distorting our perceptions.
Pretty good movie with strong performances all round.
Love Actually (2003)
20 Years late to the table and wish I hadn't come after all
Yes, I've never seen Love Actually until today, twenty years after it was made. I did start it once when it first came out, got to the scene where Martine McC's character swears at Hugh Grant and he finds this so charming he falls instantly in love, and turned it off. This scene was so stupid on so many levels that I couldn't go further. However, browsing the 'best Xmas movies' lists, this kept popping up. Was I missing a treat? I decided to give it another go.
Oh.
Wow.
Is that what people enjoy in films?
Where do I start. Hugh Grant is always a good place to start. I quite like old Hugh, national treasure and all that. But my goodness, talk about one-dimensional. He literally plays the same hesitant, upper-crust, shy buffoon in every film. And you cannot seriously present someone who looks like Hugh Grant and tell us he'd fall for a chubby, plain-looking tea girl. It's so not credible it just takes you out of the movie.
I did quite enjoy Emma Thompson's character, although ironically her storyline is the most hated in all the negative reviews. Women seem outraged that she settles for staying with Alan Rickman even when he cheats on her. To my mind, she is the only one who gets the true meaning of love: love of a mother for her children. Yes, feminists are steaming that she didn't leave. But she stayed for love. To keep her children in their lives. She puts them before herself. The other woman who ends up alone is the sister caring for her brother. Again, a hated storyline by the film's detractors, but again, one of my favourite ones. Real love. Love actually. The rest of the characters didn't understand love at all. Getting over their dead wives in a few weeks. A child forgetting his mother to lust over another child (worst storyline).
So, bravo mature women who understand that putting others first is love. But for the rest of this film? The best things about it are the 1-star reviews on here. Highly entertaining.
UFO (2018)
Refreshing Change
I have just watched a YouTube video of trailers for coming movies in 2024 and realised I'd have to be paid quite a lot of money to sit through any of them. Then on the same site, I saw this full-length film I'd not heard of. Liking Gillian Anderson and UFOs, I gave it a go. This is what films should be but aren't anymore. So, if fast-paced, utterly ludicrous action and predictable girl-boss crap is your thing, you probably want to miss this one. If an intellectual puzzle fascinates you, then you'd probably enjoy this. The acting is good, particularly from the leads. The tension is maintained throughout. The moment when Anderson breaks the code is genuinely spine-chilling. You don't have to be a mathematician to enjoy this any more than you need to be a climber to enjoy a movie about Everest. It's fascinating, enthralling and entirely plausible.
Recommended.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Awful
Did someone let a toddler loose with the editing? I have no idea what I just watched. Back and forward, sidewards, back again, further forwards... key conversations, did they happen before or after another key event? I have no idea. Trials, testimony, conversations, more talk, jump to another time, back, forward. I could not identify with any of the people; they all seemed equally despicable, particularly Oppenheimer and his wife. It's not as if I didn't know the story. I watched the Oppenheimer documentary a few days ago. I still had absolutely no idea what was happening. Does the development of the A-bomb and the subsequent ending of WWII need non-linear editing to make it interesting? It's a pity Christopher Nolan didn't watch The Dambusters movie before making this and learn something about good storytelling.
I'm only thankful I watched this for free at home on my couch and didn't either pay for it or have to drag myself to a cinema to watch it. I'm not sure why I stuck with it to the end. I usually turn off stuff this boring and annoying. Don't waste your time.
No One Will Save You (2023)
Polarising
The first act of this movie is like an extended Pushing Daisies episode. Everything is hyper-coloured, beautiful, retro vibe. Lonely girl lives alone in a beautiful classic ranch house in the woods, making 1950s dresses to sell and dioramas of perfect townships, all lit up and peopled with tiny figurines. House gets invaded by alies. Suddenly, not only does all the colour go, all the light does as well. The entire third act takes place in pitch dark with no dialogue (the movie has none at all). So all I got watching this on a laptop was noise. The aliens alternately sounded like stuck pigs or birds in the Amazon Rainforest whooping to each other. The girl was just gasps and grunts.
The last act of the movie was back to retro, but it was at night, so maybe the director had some budget left for a few lights?
I'm guessing something happened with the aliens. But as I had no lighting OR dialogue, I really have no idea.
Nice dresses.
Nice house.
But as entertainment? I'd give it a zero if I could.
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Boring Nonsense
It seems almost criminal to not like something that is a visual treat. Shots of Venice are 10/10. The set within the 'haunted villa' is masterful. But what a pile of utter hokum this whole story was. Sorry, but who was spinning the chair? We have a fake medium, all her tricks proved to be fakes, and yet her chair was spinning ferociously and no one explains this? This seems to be a rather large plot hole and as everything else in the movie is done through exposition after the fact, I was expecting Poirot to explain this too.
I can imagine this would appeal to lots of people. A period drama. A bit spooky. But I was utterly bored from beginning to end.
Frailty (2001)
Excellent Thriller But for One Major Problem
This really is an excellent movie. It's well told. It keeps you guessing until the very end. The performances are excellent. However, in my mind it has one critical flaw. The film's shock value relies on a massive twist coming at the end, this being that the 'I can see demons' plot wasn't the father's madness and that the son can indeed see demons. The whole reason he's come to 'confess' to the FBI director is so he can catch another demon--the FBI agent. Well this didn't come as a surprise at all because of Powers Boothe, the actor picked to play the agent/demon. Powers Booths has never, ever played anything else but a slimy bad guy. The minute he appears you just know he's the baddy in the movie. Twist totally blown.
Having said that, if you've existed in a black hole and never watched another film and like psychological thriller, do give this one a go. It's a really great movie.
The Equalizer 3 (2023)
Can't Fault this Movie; it's a ten
I genuinely cannot fault this film. Not only is it trademark Equalizer, it's set in the most gorgeous Italian village, which lends the whole atmosphere an effective religious backdrop. The deep faith, kindness and joy of the local people gives an extra heart to this third in the franchise. The plot is 'Equalizer' formulaic, fortunately, because it's what we come to the series to see: Denzil reluctantly takes on some bad guys and it doesn't end well for them.
This one is a delightfully slow build, from an explosive and slightly confusing start. About five minutes in I was wondering if I'd come into the film halfway through. Fear not, all is revealed.
I cannot recommend this film too highly. It's absolutely perfect entertainment. It's got heart, beauty, grace, and courage. And lots of violence, gore and well-earned retribution for evil-doers. What more could anyone want?
Swallow (2019)
We Need a Good War
There's one point in this movie where a Syrian refugee says to an American woman, 'If you had experienced war, you wouldn't be like this.' It about sums this movie up. An incredibly lucky young woman with little education, no talents and average looks marries an extremely wealthy, handsome young man who adores her and gives her everything she could possibly want. She's able to spend her days drifting around their beautiful house buying nice things. Finding this life not to her liking and bored, because, hey, she apparently can't read a book, make friends, get some hobbies, do some charity work, get a job, whatever, she decides to eat weird things. Soil, batteries, map pins, marbles... She gets pregnant and ends up in the hospital where a routine scan brings to light the contents of her stomach. Eventually, her distraught husband decides she needs to be committed because every time she's let out of people's sight she eats something else weird and dangerous.
She runs away.
She aborts the baby.
She walks away with a pleased smile.
Yes, I agree with the Syrian refugee: some women would benefit from a war to shake them out of their narcissism and self-destructive behaviour.
I'm quite sure other people will have an entirely different take on this film, but each to his own.
Speak No Evil (2022)
Triggering and Terrifying
There's nothing supernatural in this horror movie. There's no gore. There are no jump scares. And yet this is the most horrifying thing I've watched for a very long time. This really touched a nerve for me. If you have social anxiety in any shape or form then you might want to give this a miss. It's excruciating to watch these people being nice. There is a palpable sense of dread throughout this film, although (as with the couple and their daughter) it's hard for us the audience to work out why we feel like that. We are part of the horror of this film. There's no distancing yourself from it as you might with a supernatural or slasher-esque movie. I am truly disturbed by this one.
Antiviral (2012)
Who Is This Aimed At?
This is not a horror movie, despite the subject matter being horrific. There's no tension, no scares, nothing remotely more stressful than most people go through every time they go to the doctor: tests, injections, drawing blood. Yet here it's all done in artsy white and with meaningful looks and called a movie. The concept is interesting and original--that people are so obsessed with celebrity they will pay to share their viruses and fungi and other nasties, and that celebs will be quite happy to sell their blood to make these jabs. That I can believe. It's not that far removed from our current celebrity obsessions. But that's it. Good idea with very little payoff in terms of entertainment. I turned it off and read a synopsis instead and I'm pretty sure I missed nothing.
Contracted (2013)
Almost Thought-Provoking
Sometimes you find yourself questioning your life choices. I did after beginning this film. I'm not quite sure at which scene the thought crossed my mind that I shouldn't listen to recommendations for little-known horror on YouTube, but it might have been when the maggots started falling out of the promiscuous, heroine-addicted lesbian who'd just had a drunken one-night stand with a man who slept with infected corpses in the morgue. However, I persevered and in some ways I'm glad I got through to the end. I didn't realise what was happening to her (I thought maybe she'd become possessed) and so the reveal in the final scene really puts everything into context and makes the slowly developing disgust understandable.
The performance from some of the cast is very questionable, especially the mother, but the lead actress is very good, and she carries the film.
Personally, I think the MC's plight would have more impact had they not decided to make her so obnoxious before her 'infection' that we can't really care all that much about her. She's awful: a drunk, an addict, foul-mouthed, a cheat, and absolutely horrible to her poor mother. It was almost schadenfreude to see her comeuppance.
Not scary at all. No jump scares. The only horror here is the body horror kind of grossness.
Sound of Freedom (2023)
So-So
It seems wrong somehow not to rave about this movie as everyone is doing. I was incredibly excited to see it. James Caviezel is one of my favourite actors. But the best I can say about it is that it's okay. Firstly, I wasn't convinced by Caviezel's performance in this one. At one point, the character he plays, Ballard, has to go undercover playing a cocaine-addicted, rich American wanting to buy some kids in South America. I would not have been fooled by his performance for a moment, and I doubt any serious child trafficker would either. He does intense and other-wordly guy fantastically, but party guy? Nah. Secondly, isn't the premise of the story harrowing enough without the blatant attempt to manipulate the audience into what they should be feeling? There's one scene where fifty or so children are rescued on an island, and the camera returns to them after the police have carted away the pedos. These kids have been trafficked for years, sold up to ten times a day to men for sex, mostly addicted to the drugs the traffickers hook them onto, and mostly in their teens. When the camera returns to them, they are playing pat-a-cake and braiding each other's hair like little girls at a sleepover. It's such ridiculous manipulation of an audience that the impact of the scene was entirely lost.
The final rescue is played out in the jungles of South America with a drug cartel. Caveizel appears to be able to navigate and run through dense Amazonian jungle in the middle of the night with a child in his arms with no problems at all. It defied credibility.
Having said all this, it's an okay movie. I got to the end. I'm just very glad I didn't make the effort to drive into town and pay to see this.
Cobweb (2023)
Hard to Review a Totally Black Screen for 95% of a Movie
Not only can Hollywood not pay their writers, apparently studios don't have the cash to pay for lighting either. I literally sat in front of a black screen, listening to various weird voices and the occasional scream. If there was a 'monster' I could not tell you one thing about it because I didn't see it. Hats off to Ari Aster, at least he tried to make a horror film set in daylight, even it that was pretty crap too.
The beginning of this movie had real promise. Peter, a young boy is being bullied at school and seems to have a very odd homelife. It's nothing you can put your finger on, just everything seems off with his parents. One night he hears something in the walls. All is not as it seems. For a while, I was really enjoying this. It's all set at Halloween, some of the shots of the pumpkins and trees are evocative of the season. The added spine-chilling information that they won't let Peter go trick-or-treating because a girl went missing a few years ago was excellent. What do the parents know about this? Peter's new teacher is worried about him and pays a visit to the house and she's so creeped out by the parents she leaves quickly. All of this I really enjoyed.
Could not someone have written a really great solution to the noises in the walls? I don't know, maybe it was a good ending. As I didn't see it I can't tell.
Three stars because I did get to the end, which is pretty rare for movies these days. Okay, I'll come clean, I skipped ahead to see how it ended. Does that matter given it was all in the pitch dark anyway?
Shame. Lost opportunity from a very promising start.
God Is a Bullet (2023)
Animal Abuse, a Fat Zero From Me
I found this movie utterly confusing. Who was anyone? The action starts with a woman getting murdered. Who is she? No idea. Why were these men in her house? No idea. Ex cult member volunteers to help the father find his daughter. She gets repeatedly beaten, kicked, slammed into concrete walls, stomped, smashed and she's always fine. She slashes a cult member across the face with a razor and in the very next scene there's not a mark on him. Every single member of this cult (motorbike gang more than cult) is so over the top that Satan himself would find them a bit rude. The dialogue is supposed to be so edgy that it's completely incomprehensible.
There is some cool music--acoustic guitar, which seems oddly anachronistic for this kind of film, but I did enjoy it.
So, violent, gory, awful dialogue, terrible editing, but abuse of a snake did it for me and I turned it off.
Occasionally a film comes along that makes you believe in the End Times theory. If this kind of thing can be made and called entertainment then perhaps its here already.
Arrival (2016)
Awful
I have just rewatched this film, having seen it when it came out. I didn't enjoy it then either, but put that down to possibly not understanding it. Now I see all the plot twists, but still didn't enjoy it. It is slow, trite and pretentious. If we had not found the Rosetta Stone, we would still not understand hieroglyphs. You have to have some clue to be able to decipher pictorial language. Imagine if birds were communicating to us through the shape of their droppings, or cats through vomit, each coughed-up hairball a complex message about how they see the world. That's the whole premise of this movie. Some aliens come here, so advanced that they can control gravity and time, but can't learn to read, and they communicate by vomiting up hairballs (okay, giant squid and squirting ink, but same metaphor) and this silly woman, a famous linguist, can not only decipher each pile of vomit as an individual word but grasp the whole complex theory about space and time each one conveys? Give me a break.
And why does Forest Whittaker speak in a foreign language throughout this film? Is that part of the mystique or was it just his attempt to make something interesting out of his part...mumble, mumble...maybe his false teeth were loose. You know you're finding a movie boring as heck when your mind drifts to an actor's loose teeth.
Do not waste your time on this film. In theory it could have been good, but in reality it stretched far beyond its ability to pull off. Pretentious hardly begins to describe it.
The Boogeyman (2023)
Filming During a Power Cut Is Never a Good Idea
This might have been quite good. It might have had great special effects and a cool monster. Who knows? I don't because it appears to have been filmed entirely in the dark. As one reviewer has already pointed out, who knew that US houses don't have electricity? So... they're told this creature only comes when it's dark. What would you do? Immediately wander around your totally dark house without switching on any lights? No. Me neither. Although I didn't particularly enjoy Midsommer, I give it kudos for attempting horror in bright sunlight. It was effective for that alone.
Besides the appalling lack of lighting for the sets, I take issue with American fathers being presented as quite this lame. Now they have their daughters needing to save them? So little girls are braver than grown men now in Hollywood. I really do fear some young women are going to get an awful shock when they grow up and have to face reality. I mean, seriously, does any man stay in bed when they hear a scary noise in the house and make his wife go see what the noise was? Or his seven-year-old daughter?
There are similar themes in this film as in The Babbadock, but that film rates a 10 whereas this is just dire from start to finish.
Bloody Hell (2020)
Excellent Comedy, Gory as Hell
I loved this, not least for the performance of Ben O'Toole in the lead He plays himself and his alter ego only he can hear, and the other self has all the charisma and drive our poor lead hardly gets a chance to show, as he's either being shot at, strung up or eaten. And those are his good days. This is the kind of movie, a bit like John Wick (which it references) where everything goes terribly wrong for our hero ... until it doesn't. And there's a point in this movie (wait for a dinner table scene) when you'll be cheering and clapping as the table (literally) are turned.
When you think of many hillbilly cannibal movies, they could really do with a bit of comedic action, which this movie provides in spades. So, gritty action. A great revenge tale. Recommended for a great night's entertainment.
The Menu (2022)
Very Flawed, But Watchable
This a visual feast. The acting, particularly from Janet McTeer, was excellent. The storyline was intriguing, certainly enough to get me to stick with it when I began to suspect this wasn't going anywhere. But ultimately, this film made no sense. Why did Chef want everyone to die? Why these particular people? Some had upset him in the past, but what about the 'original Margo', the girl the Anya Taylor-Joy character replaced? How on Earth could she have deserved a death sentence? Why did all the other cooks want to/agree to die? Why did Chef send Margo for the barrel? What was the point of the 'protein in the smoking shed' scene? Why were the cooks all behaving in such a cult-like way? Unless basic motivations make sense, a film doesn't really work. I assumed (as with many other reviewers) that this would descend into cannibalism--that Chef would feed them something disgusting yet they still ate it, and raved about it, because they were foodies. But no.
It is worth a watch. It held my attention. But ultimately it's annoying because I feel I've been conned into watching something that had no premise, no resolution, and no answers. And what was with the mother in the corner? Kudos to that actress who had to sit through months of shooting with no dialogue, and only wine to console her. Great job if you can get it.
Emma (2009)
Faultless
This mini-series is absolutely superb. Some Jane Austen adaptations attempt to keep so true to the times they don't appeal much to modern audiences. Some attempt to go the other way, and by making them fit the current zeitgeist, no true Austen fan would want to watch them. This adaptation is so delightful it's hard to describe just how good it is. The entire cast is spot-on. The costumes are to die for. The houses chosen to represent Hartfield, Donwell and Randals, as well as Highbury, are a delight. Mr Knightley is one of the most difficult heroes of Austen's novels for audiences to like, but Miller nails it, managing to be highly amusing as well as providing the commonsense foil to Emma's imagination.
Do not miss this treat. It literally cannot be faulted.