Emily

Leaving the Brontë scholars to judge and debate the accuracy of the events of Emily, though writer director Frances O’Conner has stressed that this is a highly fictionalised version of what may have inspired Emily Brontë to write Wuthering Heights, this should be considered on its entertainment value.

Bookended by her sister Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling) asking her why she wrote such novel, the viewer is taken back to the sisters’ formative years. For Emily (Emma Mackey) and Anne (Amelia Gething) these are in the family home with father Patrick (Adrian Dunbar) and aunt Branwell (Gemma Jones).

Charlotte is training as a teacher and brother Branwell (Fionn Whitehead) is a drugged up, drunk who has aspirations as a writer. As does Emily who with a vivid imagination is a prolific storyteller though without the discipline to commit very much to paper.

It’s by no means a cosy arrangement just one the family has drifted into. When a new curate William Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) arrives at the parish is when the family sisters and brother start to splinter. Emily’s brief tenure with Charlotte at teacher training is a disaster and her French home-tutoring with Weightman reveals a waspish tongue that is directed later on at both Charlotte and Branwell resulting in humiliation. As the same time Emily’s experimentation with opium while opening her mind leads her to disaster.

Marvellous acting cannot quite paper over that Emily is bit of a plod. Certainly the viewer will be sporadically engaged when Mackey hits is in viper mode, the terrible storm and the nuggets that suggest what could have led to the book. There’s some what would be considered at the time unladylike actions but in the main it falls to the relationships that Emily has with Branwell and Weightman, the former brother/sister support and conscience, the latter wasted love and remorse.

A flirt and affair with Weightman courses one way then then another, colliding with Branwells mental and physical collapse that leaves Emily exhausted, herself in need of help but has pushed all away leaving her all but isolated.

Technically it’s in BBC costume drama land on a bigger budget, there’s rolling hills and grey clouds with a fantastic sound design. The main weakness is that imaginary or not it doesn’t quite nail or even adequately suggest why Emily wrote what is by and large a horror story, so it’s a frustrating watch.

Emily is still in cinemas and now available on DVD with deleted scenes as an extra.