12/01/98- Updated 04:58 PM ET
By Mike Clark, USA TODAY
c Copyright 2000 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.


If you chance to stumble upon an unpublished Jane Austen manuscript
at a neighborhood yard sale, the time is still hot to crack your
movie deal. Emma (**** out of four) is the peak of the recent Austen
pack and a star-maker, too - an antidote to a summer in which even
good movies have subordinated writing and characters to special
effects.

This story is so sturdy that it served as the blueprint for last
year's Clueless, though you won't find anyone here snapping Polaroids
or making Rat Pack allusions. Set in the English village of Highbury
around 1814-1816, it concerns the matchmaking machinations of a 21-
year-old master planner (Gwyneth Paltrow) who hasn't taken time to
determine her own heart's calling.

After standing out in Seven and in box-office failures from Flesh
and Bone through The Pallbearer, it was only a matter of time until
Paltrow exploded on screen. She does so here, and in a role that
really needs her, for truth to tell, Emma's a potential pain. She's
privileged, she's a gossip, she is meddlesome and in one
unforgettable scene, downright rude. But we're won over by her
outward charm and the warmth of her inner intentions. Never once,
thanks to Paltrow, do we want to wring her neck (which, by the way,
is lovely).

Emma is the startling directorial debut of Bullets Over Broadway co-
writer Douglas McGrath, who exhibits a flair for transitions from
the first scene. This is a better-looking movie than Sense and
Sensibility and one as rich in characters. These include, but aren't
restricted to, Jeremy Northam's Mr. Knightley (Emma's brother-in-law
and confidante), Juliet Stevenson as the comically self-deluded Mrs.
Elton and Trainspotting's Ewan McGregor as Frank Churchill, who's
initially regarded as a catch.

McGregor's chameleonic skills might be the story here were this not
someone else's movie. Emma is Paltrow, Paltrow is Emma, and she
might have been Sabrina, too, had she been cast in last year's limp
remake. (New York and L.A. PG: mild profanity)