I don't know how any of you feel about such things, but there is a "review" (!!! and that's being kind!!!) of the current PBS airing of "Emma" at Amazon.com that I find utterly imbecilic in context with the flaws the reviewer finds with the production:
Here is that review:
In the most recent TV adaptations of various Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, and Bronte novels, a trend seems to have developed, that of poor casting. For example, the otherwise excellent 2006 BBC version of JANE EYRE was marred - if not ruined - by the casting of an actress who is endowed with extremely distracting, John Merrick (AKA the "Elephant Man")-like lips in the titular role; the 2009 ITV adaptation of WUTHERING HEIGHTS featured a Heathcliff who has a cartoonishly small mouth and lips that are far too full for a man of his complexion (also, the Catherine Earnshaw character was portrayed by an actress with a very masculine jawline); the lead actress in the 2008 version of TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES has a long lower face, lips that are far too thick for someone of her pigmentation, and a voice so shrill that it can puncture eardrums; and the 2007 ITV remake of MANSFIELD PARK starred Billie Piper, who has also has freakishly full lips for someone that fair-skinned and a mouth that is cartoonishly large and spaced unusually far from her mouth (compared to the length of her chin) (NOTE: I neither expect nor desire indisputably beautiful actresses to get all of the leading roles, BUT there is a BIG difference between a "normal-looking" face [be it beautiful, plain, or whatever] and a funny-looking one, which tends, as I alluded to above, to distract the viewer from the story and the performances). And, even when producers and casting directors don't select lead actors who possess freaky-looking facial features, they still somehow botch it by casting actors who simply do not fit their roles in regard to appearance, as was illustrated by the actors chosen to play the lead parts in the 2007 ITV adaptation of PERSUASION (Anne Eliot is supposed to be a woman who was pretty in her youth, but is now well past her bloom yet the actress who portrays her certainly doesn't look like she's EVER been pretty and Captain Wentworth is played by a "pretty boy" whose face certainly doesn't look like it's been weathered by years spent at sea).
Such is the problem with the recent remake of Jane Austen's EMMA: the actress in the title role is, once again, sporting lips that are far too full for a woman with such fair skin and has an absolutely crazed look in her eyes whenever she's animated (she also appears to be more than a few years too old for the role) while this version of Knightly comes across as a priggish, boyish wimp, which is definitely not what Austen had in mind. Indeed, the casting of this film is very poor across the board (even Michael Gambon, who I've enjoyed in several other movies, seems out of place here). There are, of course, many other problems with this EMMA, several of which have been noted by my fellow reviewers.
Fortunately, poeple who would like to see EMMA on DVD can always purchase the 1996 ITV version, which though abbreviated, is more or less true to the book AND is very well cast and acted, starting with Kate Beckinsale as Emma and Mark Strong as Knightly. And, not only is it a much better adaptation than the latest one, but it's also sold here at Amazon for a lot less. Buy it.
The shallowness of the individual purporting to preach what characters should look like -- even suggesting that one's skin tone determines an appropriate degree of plumpness in the lips -- suggests a very disturbed and disturbing psyche (and there's a hint of racism in there, as well).
I don't know whether to accept it as a sincere representation of a disturbed mind...or as a joke, which it ultimately is.