the author of “Hauts de Hurlevent” told in a beautiful biopic but with the taste of deja-vu

The work and life of the Brontë sisters occupy the screens at all times. The strictly biographical part of their filmography was set in stone by André Téchiné in 1979 with The Bronte Sisters. British director Frances O’Connor is part of this movement with the film Emily, on the screens on March 15, dedicated to one of the three sisters and author of Stormwind Heights.

Sisterhood and parentage

Emily lives with her two sisters and her brother in an isolated house in Yorkshire. All have literary predispositions, but only the three sisters will publish poems and novels. Told from Emily’s point of view, her life as a recluse – the siblings having left home – is intertwined with her passion for her brother Branwell, whom she will put in abyme in The Wuthering Heights.

The continuity with The Bronte sisters of Téchiné, as much in the subject as in the staging, seems claimed in Emily. This filiation also emerges from the recent adaptations of the Brontë sisters, Stormwind Or Jane Eyre. Real life and fiction are closely intertwined in the Brontë. And mainly with Emily, whose evocation of Branwell, her brother, in The Wuthering Heightsfascinates readers, commentators and filmmakers.

Dark Romanticism

The images of Frances O’Connor’s Yorkshire, the low house open to all the winds, the colors of the moor, the interior lights, the checkered dresses and bonnets can obviously hardly be differentiated from other films. The subjects take place in similar settings, with identical characters, even if the treatment is different. This sentiment also emerges from the Jane Austen adaptations. More recently discovered in France, the author of reason and feelings seems to have taken over from the Brontë sisters from this point of view.

Beyond these constants, Frances O’connor’s film keeps its promises, Emily Brontë finds its incarnation in Emma Mackey. The romantic and bucolic atmosphere of the film is darkened by the self-destruction of Branwell, and the impossible love that Emily devotes to her brother. A violence of feelings and of morbid impulses that come under dark romanticism, of which The Wuthering Heights is one of the literary jewels. If we recognize it in Emily, her beauty lacks audacity.

The sheet

Gender : Drama / Biopic
Director: Frances O’Connor
Actors: Emma Mackey, Alexandra Dowling, Fionn Whitehead, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Gemma Jones
Country : Britain
Duration : 2h10
Exit : March 15 2023
Distributer : Wild BunchCast