It’s a question that has captivated countless readers over nearly two centuries: How did the shy, awkward daughter of a parson, who never married and rarely left her rural home, write a book of such wild, passionate genius? O’Connor — who writes clearly in a director’s statement that, “This is not a biographical film of Emily Brontë” — gives us something of an answer: making her version of Emily a rebel who dives into a forbidden love affair, who lies in the tall grasses telling stories to herself, who opens her window late at night so as to hear the rustling of birds’ wings and to feel the dark air around her.

And in Mackey, she has an actor who seems to create her own light. You see in her depiction the woman described in Charlotte’s words; this Emily is indeed unworldly, uncomfortable around strangers, struggling to comply with what society expects of her. And yet the artist bubbles up inside her, emerging at moments both inconvenient (there’s a harrowing sequence at a party in which Emily dons a mask and takes on a ghostly persona) and poetic. Late in the film, O’Connor lets us hear the quiet scratchings of a pen, accompanied by Abel Korzeniowski’s beautiful score, while showing us images of the untamed landscape, the empty schoolroom, the bedroom of one now lost, the laundry blowing on the line. It’s a lovely, wordless answer to Charlotte’s question. (Moira Macdonald)

Emily Brontë smokes cigarettes, takes opium and has sex with the local curate in “Emily,” a biopic of sorts that fills in every blank in the reclusive author’s biography with either sex or drugs. Count it as a mark of restraint on the part of writer-director Frances O’Connor that at no point does Emily shoot somebody.

What is the value of such a movie? Entertainment? 

“Emily” is entertaining, probably more entertaining than Brontë’s true life Story might have been. Also, it gets Brontë’s name out there, which can’t hurt book sales, just in case somebody wants to read something by an opium-taking 19th century libertine. But what about insight into the mind of the woman who wrote “Wuthering Heights”? The movie doesn’t offer any. 

As played by Emma Mackey (“Death on the Nile” and the forthcoming “Barbie”), it’s hard to believe that Emily could have written anything. Mackey goes through the movie big-eyed and blank-faced, occasionally smiling furtively, seeming like an oddball — and not a tortured oddball but a preening oddball who wants you to notice.

Yet before we blame Mackey, consider what she’s being asked to do. O’Connor, an actress (“The Importance of Being Earnest,” “Kiss or Kill”) making her directorial debut, calls upon Mackey to evoke and embody Emily Brontë while furnishing her with a life and personality entirely different from that of the famous author. This is an impossible task. Forget about writing “Wuthering Heights”; I don’t believe this Emily could read it. [...]

The other important man in Emily’s life is Mr. Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), the new curate who is often in the Brontë family home. Mr. Weightman is young and handsome, and he and Emily connect in the way that opposites sometimes do. She doesn’t know if he’s a prig or the love of her life, and he doesn’t know if she’s his ideal mate or some form of temptation summoned from the depths of hell. Such intense inner conflicts often form the basis of powerful — and very brief — relationships.

It’s all rather enjoyable, and O’Connor, having starred in “Mansfield Park” (1999), certainly knows her way around 19th century romance. Yet the question remains: What is the point of all this?

To be specific, what is the point of going back 175 years in search of our own values and vision of the world? What is the point of transplanting a modern woman into rural 1840s England, just so we can turn around and say, “Yes, that’s our Emily!”

No. It’s not.

I’ll tell you who I’d love to have watched this movie with — Emily Brontë. But I doubt she’d have lasted 20 minutes. They say she had a temper. Her review would have been a lot harsher than mine. (Mick LaSalle)

Director Frances O’Connor recalls reading “Wuthering Heights” for the first time at age 15, and being completely transported by the novel.

“These characters were so rebellious, they didn’t care what people thought about them, and they were connected in this really brilliant kind of way where there was no boundaries — and this atmosphere was so elemental and slightly supernatural,” O’Connor said. “So, it really appealed to my 15-year-old angsty self.”

“Emily” is O’Connor’s directorial debut, and features a script that she wrote over many years.

“I knew I always wanted to tell this story about a young woman finding her voice, and she just happens to be Emily Brontë,” O’Connor said. [...]

Visually, “Emily” is stunning, with its muted tones, slightly grainy texture, and cuts that bring the disparate moments in the characters’ lives together like blinks of an eye.

The landscape is a major focus of the movie, which is full of stunning shots of the wild and windy moors that have haunted the imagination of people like myself for centuries. The film was shot on location in Yorkshire, about an hour from where the Brontës lived in Haworth, and the tempestuous weather only brought the actors closer to the world they were meant to be inhabiting.

“It really helped I think in terms of [realism] — you’re shooting the real, authentic landscapes, the actors are in the wind, with their cheeks going red because of the wind that was whipping up around them,” O’Connor said.

“Emily” is not a cut-and-dry biopic, but the creative liberties taken only enhance the passion and emotional resonance of the story. For a film that is about creativity above all else, pursuing historical accuracy to the letter is, frankly, nonsensical.

O’Connor said she wanted the movie to be a “flight of imagination” in the way that “Wuthering Heights” is, and the film succeeds in this and in maintaining the transportive quality that characterizes writing of the Brontës.

Simply put, I adored this movie. The soundtrack has made it into my rotation, bringing a quality of wonder and inspiration to my morning walks that I didn’t know was missing. In the weeks since watching “Emily,” I’ve found myself continuing to think about it almost daily.

Ultimately, O’Connor encourages us to get out there and take control of our own lives. The film motivates us to take Emily’s example and think, create, and live as authentically as we can — especially in the face of a patriarchal society where deviating from the norm can be seen as threatening. (Kate Companion)

From its opening, a question of selfishness pulses within this Emily Brontë biopic. How could Emily dare write a novel so rife with “selfish” characters as Wuthering Heights, her older sister Charlotte implores. Actor-turned-director Frances O’Connor’s debut film then flashes back to Emily’s teen years to consider the pain, passion and self-focus necessary for a young woman to pen an all-time-great novel in a culture deadening to her inspiration. Emma Mackey (star of Netflix’s Sex Education) plays Emily as a proverbial middle child, rebellious with a sly remove. She employs her senses as a sponge, soaking in the ghostly vigor of the West Yorkshire moors despite the Anglican influence of her father (Adrian Dunbar) and hunky new local preacher William Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). O’Connor’s script largely invents a web of Brontë family dynamics, positing her path to becoming the lit-loving clan’s simultaneous North Star and black sheep. That’s a welcome alternative to depicting staunch Victorian manners and Emily glued to a writing desk. Still, one wonders if a slightly bloodier performance (think Keira Knightly, circa 2007), as opposed to Mackey’s inherently modern-feeling cool, could have elevated the sensuousness. But as an act of risk-taking imagination, Emily gives a legendary novelist and the power of selfishness their rightful flowers. (Chance Solem-Pfeifer)

“From the offset there’s a mutual fascination,” Mackey says. “There’s an unwanted fascination between the two of them.”

Oliver Jackson-Cohen plays clergyman William Weightman, the other half of the romantic duo. He says curiosity isn’t the only thing that connects the pair.

“What seems to bind them together is this element of creativity. The fact that Weightman is suppressing, to a certain extent, his creativity for what he believes is right,” Cohen said. “Here’s Emily’s creativity kind of coming out of her … I think there’s something incredibly romantic about that.”

Writer/director Frances O’Connor says it was important for Brontë to fall for someone much her opposite, that the challenge of it allowed her to remain true to herself.

“I think it’s really helpful for Emily to fall in love with what really is the patriarchy. Someone who ultimately is never going to accept who she is,” O’Connor says. “Those parts of us that are authentic and different, a lot of the time the patriarchy doesn’t accept it. So, what do you do and how do you still maintain your voice through that?”

While the film explores grief and confinement, Mackey believes it is ultimately a story about hope.

“I think it’s a very sad film. I always feel very heartbroken after … But it is a hopeful film,” Mackey says. “All of the characters show in some way that they’re trying to fight for something and they’re trying to find their voice.”

Lookingglass Theatre Company’s take on Charlotte Bronte’s 1853 gothic novel “Villette” features sumptuous visuals and a skilled, charismatic ensemble. Unfortunately, those significant attributes can’t quite overcome a choppy adaptation that renders Bronte’s rich, sprawling story thin and disjointed and shortchanges its characters.

Clocking in at just over two and a half hours, Sara Gmitter’s adaptation of “Villette,” directed by Tracy Walsh, feels abridged to the point of incompleteness. The novel spans several decades, two countries and has roughly a dozen significant characters. Gmitter has deleted half the characters and relegated the story’s earlier years to brief bits of narration — both choices that leave the story missing crucial pieces of context. 

Still, “Villette” has many engrossing, memorable moments, thanks to a more-than capable cast. In all, it’s an alternately frustrating and engaging production. 

Bronte’s plot is threaded with themes also at work in her earlier, more famous work, “Jane Eyre.” Like Jane, Lucy Snowe (Mi Kang) is a young woman who narrates her own story, which begins with her on the verge of reinvention in early 19th century England. When we meet Lucy, she’s leaving her home for a new life in France [sic]. 

On the shipboard, Lucy has a fateful encounter with fellow-passenger Ginerva Fanshawe (Mo Shipley), a vain, selfish and surprisingly self-aware student from Madame Beck’s School for Girls in the (fictional) French [sic] village of Villette . At the obnoxious-yet-endearing Ginerva’s suggestion, Lucy finds a position at the school under the raptor-like supervision of exacting headmistress Madame Beck (Helen Joo Lee). [...]

Petticoats and all, costume designer Mara Blumenfeld does gorgeous work throughout, using impeccably tailored details to telegraph character traits. Lucy’s monochromatic gray jacket and skirt are the armor of someone trying to blend in. Paul Emmanuel’s wire spectacles lend him gravitas. The creases in Madame Beck’s immaculate jacket look sharp as knives. Mrs. Bretton’s gleaming gown gives her the air of a goddess.

Yu Shibagaki’s atmospheric set design is dominated by sepia-toned screens that back the actors with images of carefully inked pages reminiscent of a 19th century manuscript. Lighting designer John Culbert gives a watercolor moodiness to the production, a sea of jarred bulbs descending from above when the supernatural elements of the story rise to the fore.

There’s enough talent on stage to tell this convoluted tale with passion and impact. But first, they need a script that captures Bronte’s story. (Catey Sullivan)