Writing for "The Washington Post", Megan Rosenfeld praised the production and especially saved positive comment for Beckinsale, whom she called perhaps "the best of all" the previous adaptations of the novel. The actress, Rosenfeld opined, "looks at home in the dresses, cavernous houses and rolling countryside of Austen's 19th-century England, and yet seems modern in her alertness and in her way of not being intimidated by men. Her Emma gives you the confidence that any mischief she may get into can probably be undone." Gerard Gilbert of "The Independent" agreed, writing that Beckinsale "has the right mixture of sassiness, nosiness and self-satisfaction."