Secure your bonnets and raise your pinkies, the first official trailer for Emma is here. Starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the titular matchmaker, this update to the 1815 Jane Austen novel appears to be more modern than ever.
It follows the deliciously pastel world of Emma Woodhouse, “a restless queen bee without rivals in her sleepy little town.” As Emma plays cupid to her inner circle (with decidedly mixed results), her own unexpected match may arise. The reimagined classic is directed by Autumn de Wilde as her feature debut and was written by Eleanor Catton.
Focus Features/Working Title
Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Split) is joined by an ensemble cast including Johnny Flynn as Knightley, Bill Nighy as Mr. Woodhouse, Mia Goth as Harriet, Callum Turner as Frank, and Miranda Hart as Miss Bates. Most importantly, Josh O’Connor, aka the unexpectedly Hot Prince Charles™ from The Crown‘s third season, will play the ever-infuriating Mr. Elton.
This iteration of Emma will be the third major movie adaptation of the Austen novel. Gwyneth Paltrow played the lead role in 1996 a year after Amy Hecklerling helmed Clueless, which uses the framework of Austen’s plot in its ’90s Beverly Hills update. Alicia Silverstone assumed the role of Cher in that iteration, a character based on Woodhouse.
The film is produced by Focus Features alongside Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner (Les Miserables, Bridget Jones’s Diary); and Graham Broadbent and Pete Czernin (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri).
Emma arrives in theaters—via carriage—on February 21, 2020.