Rose B

This Emma gets a no from me. Emma’s character is not perfect but she is meant to be sweet and likeable. This Emma is haughty, arrogant and off-putting. Pretty sure Jane Austen wouldn’t have chosen this latest version as her heroine.

As already mentioned by others here, series 1 too long and absurd. By the 12th episode you’re pleading for it to be over but you can’t stop because you’re invested. By the 20th episode you don’t give toss who the killer is, worst still, it turns out to be person you had already guessed by episode 3 or 4. Utter nonsense.

A great movie about a girl stuck between different worlds- her innocence and her sexual awakening, her strict African muslim culture and the western world she inhabits. She’s angry and heartbroken over her father taking a second wife. She struggles with her emotions alone because her mother’s too busy grieving to notice what’s happening with her. She forms a strong bond with Angelica, who’s also going through similar issues. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that her name is Amy, pronounced ami, which in French means friend. Because it is also a movie about friendship, filling in for absent parents. The film’s overt sexuality makes us uncomfortable but I think that’s deliberate. We should feel uncomfortable about hypersexuality. This is the world our children live in. If it’s hypocritical of her to hold a mirror to society in such a way then perhaps we should ask ourselves why we are so outraged. What’s interesting is that at no point in the movie do you fear for the safety of these girls, nor feel that the male gaze is inappropriate or threatening. To these girls dancing is a way to express the feelings that they do not yet understand. It is the audience’s reaction to it that is more telling.

I thought it was going to be filmed all over Rome but it seems to take place solely in the villa. Almost the entire thing is filmed in one social situation, the wedding, which obviously means acting and dialogue must be strong enough to carry it through. It’s cringeworthy. So damn awful I gave up a quarter of the way through.