Review

Emily is a 2022 British biographical film written and directed by Frances O’Connor about a fictional romance between the writer Emily Bronte and the young curate William Weightman. The film stars Emma Mackey as Emily and Oliver Jackson-Cohen as William.

The story begins when a dying Emily is asked what inspired her to write Withering Heights and Emily reminisces about the time a young curate, William Weightman, arrived at the parsonage for a visit. While her sisters, Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling) and Anne (Amelia Gething), take a shine to the handsome young man, Emily is unimpressed. Their paths cross once more when Emily fails in her attempt to become a teacher and her father engages Weightman to tutor Emily in French. The pair begin to form a close bond which soon becomes intimate but Weightman ends their affair when Charlotte begins to suspect something is going on between them. Devastated, Emily decides to go to Brussels with Charlotte but Emily has a vision of Weightman dying and later learns he has died of cholera.

Emily and Charlotte return to the parsonage to take of their brother, Branwell (Fionn Whitehead), with whom Emily has always been close. A dying Branwell confesses to Emily that Weightman gave him a letter for him to pass on to her but he kept it instead. The letter urges Emily to keep writing and it gives her the boost she needs to write Wuthering Heights. Later, the dying Emily tells Charlotte that she loved Weightman and urges her sister to destroy all their love letters. Charlotte fulfils her sister’s request and goes on to write her own novels.

Emily is a breathtakingly beautiful film which tells a tragic story of a doomed romance that never actually existed, but Frances O’Connor manages to give Emily Bronte’s character a modern twist without being too jarring. The Emily Bronte we meet in this film has a much wilder nature than we would normally associate with a parson’s daughter, but one that is supposed to make it easier to understand how someone as reclusive as Emily could write a novel like Wuthering Heights. Emily is given a role as Branwell’s partner in crime until their mischievousness catches up with them and Branwell is sent away. At a loss, Emily eventually forms a bond with William Weightman which eventually turns into a brief but passionate affair. Honestly, I cannot imagine the real Emily Bronte kissing a man, let alone having sex with one. Besides, it was her younger sister, Anne, who was said to have been in love with Weightman, although there is no proof.

Speaking of proof, a dying Emily asks Charlotte to burn all her love letters which is a genius stroke on the part of the director as the viewer is now given permission to believe in the romance even though there is not a shred of evidence to support it. The film also plays fast and loose with the timeline of the novels that were written, implying that Wuthering Heights was written after the death of Branwell and that Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre after her Emily’s death. The film has an interesting take on Emily’s life but the romance is just not believable despite an excellent performance from Emma Mackey. It also begs the question why Emily needed to experience a passionate affair to write a novel like Wuthering Heights in the first place.