Emma (1996 theatrical film) Jane Austen's most endearing character, the disastrously self-assured matchmaker Emma Woodhouse. A fine cast, speedy pacing and playful direction make this a solid contender for the Austen sweepstakes." Emma (1996 theatrical film) Emma is a 1996 period film based on the 1815 novel of the same name by Jane Austen. Written and directed by Douglas McGrath, the film stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Alan Cumming, Toni Collette, Ewan McGregor, and Jeremy Northam. The film describes a year in the life of Emma Woodhouse, a congenial but naïve young woman who thinks of herself as a romantic matchmaker in her small community in
Reception history of Jane Austen her relationship with British/English national identity within the context of the long wars with France. Jon Mee in his 2000 essay "Austen's Treacherous Ivory: Female Patriotism, Domestic Ideology, and Empire" examined how Fanny Price defined her sense of Englishness in connection with the English countryside, arguing that Austen was presenting a version of England defined as country estates in a bucolic countryside that was insulated from a "larger, more uncertain and un-English world". Mee suggested that in "Emma", the very name of Mr. Knightley, which suggests the Middle Ages, together with the name of his estate, Donwell Abbey, are meant