The movie directed by Douglas McGrath, “Emma” should be remembered as the far better translation of Jane Austen’s novel “Emma” in comparison to the fellow adaptation of the novel, “Clueless”, directed by Amy Heckerling. While each movie has its fair share of strengths and weaknesses and are fantastic films on their own, one portrays everything Austen wanted through her writing much better than the other. By staying true to the original story through a traditional translation, McGrath’s film more accurately encapsulates the written world of “Emma”, displays the progression of each character’s development thoroughly, and develops a more captivating romance than “Clueless” attempts to make. In Jane Austen’s writing, she creates a beautiful world,…show more content… The story of “Emma” is one with great emphasis on social class and the setting plays a crucial role in this. In McGrath’s film, we see Emma’s structured day-to-day life in her regal home, attending wealthy parties in other expensive homes, and being given great respect when she is in town with lower class individuals. In Heckling’s film, Cher, the character representing Emma, is also from an extremely wealthy family, but is just a spoiled high school student in Beverly Hills. Although her popularity in her school and family money makes her stand out from others, we lose the very structured hierarchy established in the original story. McGrath’s adaptation was able to make the emphasis on social class more prevalent with his matching setting to the novel, while Heckerling’s does not have a very noticeable divide between characters of different status. With how important the theme of social class is to the main message of Jane Austen’s novel, “Clueless” has a weaker connection to its source material by not having it be a main focus. One of the novel’s most notable attributes is Jane Austen’s ability to subtly portray the development of each
