Author Jane Austen passed away, age 41, in 1817 but her influence has proven to be timeless. Her novels, literary studies in parody, burlesque and irony mixed with social commentary, have enjoyed second lives in everything from “Clueless,” an update of “Emma” set in Beverly Hills, and the self-explanatory “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
Add to the list, just in time for Pride Month, “Fire Island,” a new LGBTQ2+ romantic comedy on Disney+, based on Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”
Joel Kim Booster stars as Noah, part of a twentysomething group of friends who gather every year for a week of mixing and mingling at a Fire Island house owned by their friend and den mother Erin (Margaret Cho). It is a tradition and a sacred “gay Disney World” weekend for bookworm Max (Torian Miller), pleasure seekers Luke (Matt Rogers) and Keegan (Tomas Matos) and Noah’s best friend Howie (“Saturday Night Live’s” Bowen Yang) who now lives in San Francisco but makes the trip every year.
Determined to arrange a love match, or at least a hook-up, for the insecure Howie, Noah is on the look-out for eligible men.
Enter the “prejudice” part of the story, the Mr. Darcy character, Will (Conrad Ricamora). He’s a snobby, wealthy man visiting the island with a gaggle of his lawyerin’ and doctorin’ friends. Will’s friend Charlie (James Scully) and Howie hit it off, but will Noah and Will be able to overcome their differences and become friends?
Originally created as a series on the now-defunct Quibi service, “Fire Island” has expanded to feature length with its exploration (by way of Austen) of class and status intact. Booster, who stars and wrote the script, transposes Austen’s corsets and petticoats for Speedos and wild drug and booze fueled parties but maintains the source material’s study of overcoming obstacles for true love, class status and, especially in reference to Noah’s clique, the strength of a family network. The bond between the guys is at is the heart of this R-rated movie and helps anchor the raunchier and lighter “Legally Blonde” moments.
Director Andrew Ahn keeps up the pace, and makes Fire Island look like a million-dollar getaway. That glossy style, combined with Austen’s sensibility, adds up to an entertaining comedy of manners; lightweight, but celebratory.
Like the offspring of Jane Austen’s original text and “Clueless,” the 1995 American coming-of-age teen comedy it inspired, the new version of “Emma,” now on VOD, is a period piece with a modern sensibility.
Anya Taylor-Joy is the title character, a young woman of high birth. As the opening credits say, she is “handsome, clever and rich and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.” She lives in a large manner house with servants and her father (Bill Nighy), a dour gent who constantly feels a draft. Next door is the wealthy and handsome George Knightley (Johnny Flynn), a landowner who is almost like a brother to Emma.
When she isn’t painting portraits of her friends Emma meddles in the life of her naïve protégé Harriet (Mia Goth). Harriet loves a local farmer, but Emma, hoping the young woman will marry up, pushes her toward the town vicar (Josh O’Connor). Romantic complications and status problems arise when the impossibly wealthy Frank Churchhill (Callum Turner), who catches Emma’s eye, and the poor but beautiful Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson) return to town at the same time.
At the heart of every scene is Taylor-Joy. As Emma she is whip smart, arrogant, devious and charismatic even when she’s being unpleasant. Her journey toward self-awareness is an eventful one, speckled with manipulation, some kindness and casual cruelty. One of the film’s best scenes involves an offhand remark that deeply cuts a down-on-her-luck acquaintance (Miranda Hart). In this one scene Emma’s entire attitude toward class is laid bare. She can be cruel and unthinking because the subject of her insult is not of the same social strata. Taylor-Joy brings the mix of sophistication and brattiness necessary to understand why Emma is the way she is. She has lived a life with no fear of social reprisal but will not be able to move ahead until she learns about sensitivity. It’s in there, all Emma has to do is find it.
Every frame of “Emma” is sumptuous, like “Downton Abbey” on steroids, but this isn’t “Masterpiece Theatre.” It brims with life and mischievousness, becoming more alive as Emma inches toward adulthood.
Director Autumn de Wilde has assembled a top flight cast of character actors to decorate the already beautiful scenery. Nighy literally leaps into frame, delivering a deadpan performance tempered with some good physical humour. Hart is both annoying and vulnerable before her character’s circumstance takes a heartbreaking turn. The supporting cast isn’t always given much to do but each, particularly Goth as a young woman who wears her emotions on her sleeve, help us understand the mosaic of Emma’s life.
“Emma” is a tad too long as the mixed messages and missed connections build up, and the story’s inherent rom com format—there’s even a running to the airport, or in this case a carriage, scene—seems familiar, but retains the wit that has made the story a classic.
Imagine “The Walking Dead” as seen through the lens of “Masterpiece Theatre.” Slashterpiece Theatre. Or maybe the love child of Jane Austen and George A. Romero. Either way, you get the high concept idea of the new Lily James film “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” It’s such a whack-a-doodle idea it’s either going to be great or the worst thing ever.
Set in 19th century England, the movie shares some character names and situations with the novel but in this new, fanciful version a plague has turned much of the population into “ravishing unmentionables.” These zombies are different than the “Night of the Living Dead” style droolers. If these ever-civilised British stenches never consume human brains, they will never fully transform. Still, enough of them have changed to warrant building a Trump-style anti-undead wall around London and for regular folk to become zombie-killing ninjas. Literally.
In this story upper crust English families send their children to Japan or China to learn the secrets of martial arts. One such clan are the Bennets. All five daughters are deadly—with knives hidden in their petticoats—but second oldest Elizabeth (Lily James) is a Shaolin monk trained fighter who can disembowel a zombie before you can say “Mr. Darcy.”
Speaking of Mr. Darcy, he’s a Colonel with a bloodlust for brain-eaters and a romantic lust for Elizabeth. His rival for Elizabeth’s affections is Mr. Wickham (Jack Huston), a handsome lieutenant who wants to try and find a way to coexist with the unwanted invaders. “Soon the dead will outnumber the living,” he says. “Nine months to make a baby, 16 years to turn them into a soldier… but just two seconds to make a zombie.”
As the zombie menace intensifies so do things between Wickham, Darcy and Lizzie. A final showdown brings them all together, alongside their pride, prejudice and yes, zombies.
The idea of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” may be koo koo bananas but it works. When they aren’t trying to make Blighty an undead free zone, or high kicking and karate chopping, for the most part they play it straight. As Darcy watches Lizzie slice-and-dice her way through a crowd of zombies he looks on in admiration, reciting a quote from the book about her face being rendered, “uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes.” The situation is ridiculous but the actors play it straight, heightening the absurdity.
It’s not all Austen, however. Darcy’s use of carrion flies to identify people who have been bitten but not yet turned into zombies—they’re attracted to dead flesh—is far beyond the English novelist’s sense or sensibility. Instead of Austen trademarked biting irony, there’s just a lot of biting.
As for gore, I’m sure the film would horrify Austen, but there’s more actual blood-and-guts in the first 10 minutes of most “Walking Dead” episodes than in this entire movie.
“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” makes the best of its one joke, the mashup of Austen romantic fiction with zombie realism, deftly (and ridiculously) blending the sublime with the ultraviolent.
