Toni is too BIG
What spoils for me an otherwise carefully cast movie is Toni Collette as Emma's protegee, Harriet Smith. Instead of the sweet, timid, not terribly bright, but very pretty and dainty girl of the book, we get Toni Collette as a big, bosomy, clumsy girl, whose confusion and awkwardness are broadly comic, and who is so capable looking and so much bigger than Gwyneth Paltrow that she looks ridiculous and unbelievable being so easily led. Also, it is absurd to think that Mr Knightley would ever be interested in her, or that Emma would think that he was--whereas it is just possible that he might have his head turned by someone very young and pretty whose mind was a blank slate he could fill to suit him. That, however, I think, points up why the right sort of actress was not cast--too many viewers might think a timid, pretty dumbbell more desirable than a girl who was pretty, confident, and clever. Alas, even two centuries after Jane Austen created Emma, female helplessness has not lost its charm or female spirit its terrors.
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