Title: Rather too cute
Product review: Too much a vehicle for Paltrow, and too little a vehicle for Austen. The Beckinsale A&E version is much better, and I'm not sure that the BBC version was not the best - I cannot decide. But this one is superficial and unsatisfying. Too vague a Jane Fairfax, while Frank Churchill is sometimes too flashy and sometimes too dull and lumpish, while the relationship between these two is undeveloped. Miss Taylor is too young and foolish, and Mr. Knightley looks still wet behind the ears - no match for his Emma. Emma is too pretty and Harriet not pretty enough, the hypochondriac father, so richly and amusingly portrayed in both the other versions, is just thrown away here, while the Harriet Smith character is rather wooden and the Harriet-Emma relationship lacks most of the humor Austen wickedly portrayed in it - which the other two versions bring out very well. I will say, I do like the portrayal here of one of Austen's prize jerks - the ineffable Mrs. Elton.
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