A highlight at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, actor Frances O’Connor’s directorial debut Emily finds Emma Mackey playing Emily Brontë, set in her own Gothic story that inspired her seminal novel, Wuthering Heights. Haunted by the death of her mother, Emily struggles within the confines of her family life and yearns for artistic and personal freedom, and so begins a journey to channel her creative potential into one of the greatest novels of all time. Ahead of the February 17 release from Bleecker Street, the first trailer has now arrived for the film also starring Fionn Whitehead, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Alexandra Dowling, Adrian Dunbar, and Amelia Gething.
Christopher Schobert said in his TIFF review, “Emily, the directorial debut for Mansfield Park and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence star Frances O’Connor, is one of the more remarkably assured first efforts in recent memory. Shot with breathtaking beauty and acted with extraordinary emotion and grace, this exploration of the life and development of Emily Brontë is tremendously enveloping. Emily looks deep into Brontë’s life story for evidence of what that really means. While it is unclear how much of the film is historically accurate and how much is conjecture, O’Connor’s account of the author of Wuthering Heights feels respectful and well-reasoned. “
See the trailer below.
Emily opens on February 17, 2023.