In an early scene from Frances O’Connor’s directorial debut Emily, our titular character is in bed practising French with her sister Charlotte when she reveals she is reading Molière’s Le Misanthrope and enjoying it. Perhaps she relates to its main character? 

Emily, played exquisitely by Emma Mackey, is known in her part of the world as “the strange one” – a vivacious, free-spirited woman who refuses to adhere to the social mores of her time. 

A still from Frances O’Connor’s film Emily. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures

O’Connor’s speculative biopic reimagines the story of the elusive Brontë sister, and humanises the creator of one of the most seminal texts in the English language, Wuthering Heights. 

The film contains the genre’s trademark scenes: stolen kisses, the eroticism of the gaze, piano playing, running through shadowy moors. 

Its narrative thrust centres on Emily’s two vital relationships, both of which are with men – her brother, Branwell, a budding writer like herself, (played by Dunkirk’s Fionn Whitehead) and her lover William Weightman, the new curate (played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen). She is rigorously loyal to both men, who are each sympathetic and tormented in their...