Therapist Reacts to EMMA's Relationship Advice

or domain using code cinematherapy!

How do you make amends for past mistakes? Have you ever played matchmaker?

Emma Woodhouse, thinks she knows everything about relationships. Jonathann Decker, an actual, professional, licensed therapist, knows way more about relationships. Who will win in this duel for the ages? Together with filmmaker Alan Seawright, Jonathan discusses Emma’s matchmaking, selfish motives, and how her own insecurities affect her relationships. Jonathan distinguishes between wanting to help people and Emma’s amusement at playing with people’s lives. He praises Jane Austen’s ability to observe and understand human psychology, and Alan compares her to Aaron Sorkin - no one talked like that! They pay tribute to the incredible performances from the whole cast, especially Anya Taylor-Joy, and Alan fanboys about the film's staging and blocking. He wants to go to Autumn de Wilde film school.

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Cinema Therapy is:
Written by: Megan Seawright, Jonathan Decker, and Alan Seawright
Produced by: Jonathan Decker, Megan Seawright, Alan Seawright, and Corinne Demyanovich
Edited by: Sophie Téllez
Director of Photography: Bradley Olsen
English Transcription by: Anna Preis

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[jandmever]

Petition for Screen Therapists to do all the Jane Austen film adaptations

[MDaggatt]

By the way, Emma has the single best historical costumes in any movie I've ever seen. Half of the outfits they have are direct museum copies, and the other half come from fashion plates. This is EXACTLY what people dressed like in 1815. They nailed it.

[trinaq]

I love how loving Emma's relationship with her father was, and she positively adored spending time with him. Even when Knightley proposes to her, she refuses to marry him if it means leaving her beloved dad. Knightley compromises by moving in with them so that they can both care for him.

[Glaleria]

What is so painfull about the missus Bates incident is that she is actually the one person who thought of Emma the highest of them all, never saw any flaw in her, just as in her niece miss Fairfax. And of all the people Emma hurt, she hurt the most fragile one in all. And even then, she never blamed Emma

[morganleanderblake]

"But you are *always* kind." It settles on her like a lead weight. This is one of those forgivenesses that is worse because they're too easy about forgiving you and you realize you need to do better.

[localbottlecap]

I think an important thing to note about Emma's character is her inherent loneliness and it's quite sad in its own way. She seemingly doesn't have many friends or peers her age and of her social standing (unfortunately the classism does play an issue here), Mrs. Weston was her only confidante, and her father, while loving, has deep nervous tendencies and leaves the running of the household to her. Materially, she has everything in the world, and yet she had no companionship, no real friends to help guide her except for Mr. Knightley, but one person's voice of reason can often be drowned out by the entirety of Highbury praising you. To quench that boredom and loneliness, she takes to fulfilling herself and deriving joy from other people's lives by playing god in them. An addition that I personally love with Autumn de Wilde's 2020 adaptation, is at the start of the film how Emma is in her hot house selecting flowers for a bouquet, and says to the attendant about to cut one off "Not that one. The next." Off the bat, it establishes the power and standing Emma wields, but also how she insists on making the choices, and deciding who or what goes together, much like her real life match making. There are scenes of just Emma alone, bored, with no friends, trying to talk with her father, but then her father falling into his hypochondriac tendencies instead. Her family and acquaintances are her flowers, her hot house, her doll house (in fact the 2009 adaptation plays with that "people are her dolls" idea too), she mix and matches them to her choosing to create the perfect "bouquet", in an attempt to create scenarios where there is companionship/contentment in her town and life, where she doesn't have any personally. Not that that makes her actions okay, but I do think that's an interesting facet of her psychology.

[misfit]

it's actually pretty wild to me when i first saw this film and found out that it's Autumn De Wilde's debut feature i was like excuse me!? coz i agree! the whole thing was shot to perfection and i do think her being a photographer has lent a lot to her ability to stage and plan things well. so so beautiful.

[saraha.]

Emma is 21. It’s the opening line of the novel. She lived 21 years in the world with little to distress or vex her. But indeed she knows very little about relationships.

[juliaperez]

One thing I *loved* about this adaptation is how much the tongue-and-cheek filming style felt so much like reading the book. While I enjoy lots of Austen adaptations, I think they all take the setting and era far more seriously than Jane Austen ever did. Her writing is constantly poking fun at the absurdity of the world she's portraying, and I think this is the only adaptation I've seen that really captured her style.

[callistocharon]

When she decides that she can't say yes Mr. Knightly until after she has personally apologized and made things right between Harriet and Mr. Martin is when I finally believe that she has grown as a person and was not just shamed into an apology by her community. Also, her getting a nose bleed in the middle of Mr. Knightly professing his love to her cracks me up every time.

[Albinojackrussel]

One of the things I love about the book is that Emma's saviour complex in part comes about by being the wealthiest woman in the area (and thus of course the best because that's how class worked/works), and partly because she's been managing her father's severe anxiety for so long. She's been parentified by her father and thus thinks she's much smarter and more grown up than she really is.

This is also why she won't consider marrying because she worries about the effect her leaving would have on him. In the book she initially plans to not even tell her father she's engaged and only marry Knightly once he's dead. But Knightly is truely a lovely romantic lead and he actually offers to move into her father's estate so she won't have to leave him.

[lizthedisjointedzebra]

The picnic scene GUTTED me. Because you can see the INSTANT regret in Emma's face dropping, the hurt and heartbreak in Mrs. Bates' face, and the conversation coming to a screeching halt. Just absolute perfection.

[SuperMeglen]

I LOVE the Jane Austen=Aaron Sorkin comparison. People sometimes forget in the romance of it all how incredibly clever Austen's dialogue is. That's why my favorite adaptations keep as much of her dialogue as humanly possible. It's basically impossible to improve upon.

[abbewinter]

That scene with Emma inadvertently hurting Miss Bates actually had me in tears. I've been Miss Bates in that situation with almost that exact statement, and I can tell you that hearing those words from someone you're friends with cuts you to the core. It doesn't matter how well intended the joke was, Emma hit on something that she shouldn't have.

[ChildOfDarkDefiance]

Emma makes for an interesting character, especially as a female, in that she LIKES her life. She likes her status, her home, taking care of her nervous father, being an aunt. Miss Taylor becoming Mrs. Weston is the first ripple in the waters. Though she wanted her friend to be happy, her making a new home is sad for Emma, so she focuses on the power trip (that she's been on since she was a child) of being the cleverest person in most rooms she's in. When she sees that she wants to be with Knightly, it's to keep things as similar to what they've been as she can.
By the end, she still like her life, & that life has changed little. She has changed.

[kelliehorn]

"You can't be on a pedestal if you keep climbing down." -Jono
I LOVE THAT. People might be tempted to soak it up when they're put on a pedestal. But some people choose to remain humble no matter what.

[tbttube]

My grandmother, who was a narcissist, would phrase things all the time about how it was "our choice" "we could only decide for ourselves" and the subtext was always "I'm going to approve or disapprove of either decision". There is a fine line between good advice and manipulation because on the surface it sounds the same, but the intention behind is what actually matters.

[azimovaisha]

"When did you ever stop at three?"

That line struck me so hard, and reminded me so much of what I hear.
I recently was put on the same spot on a work outing, where we split the check evenly in three groups.
First group had 5 people. Second group had 6 people. Third group had one person. That person was me. When I asked, how come I was separated as my own category I was told:

"Well, you're the only fat one here. It would be unfair for anyone to evenly split the check with someone who eats as much as you do."

Sometimes I sit and wonder for a couple of minutes, if she ever, just like Emma, realized just what she said and how deeply she scarred me forever that day.

[pinkpandamiranda]

The famous scene where Emma is so terribly rude made me cringe so hard I yelled.

[misfit]

fun fact: jane fairfax actress is actually a classically trained pianist hehe