‘Emily’ is a bit of 19th-century ‘Mean Girls’ and some 1960s hallucinogens

Emily tells the story of Emily Brontë, whose Wuthering Heights is perhaps the best novel written by a Brontë sister and adapted into an excellent movie.

But little is known about the life of Emily Brontë, who died shortly after her lone book was published. Actor Frances O’Connor, writing and directing her first film, mixes fact with speculation to create a modernized Emily who’s a wildly imaginative, antisocial, opinionated, and skeptical loner living at home.

There’s a bit of 19th-century Mean Girls in Emily, as well as some 1960s hallucinogens. The closest relationship Emily (an intense Emma Mackey) has is with her brother, Branwell (Fionn Whitehead), as they frolic in the countryside high on opium. She’s madly in lust with the handsome curate William Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who has come to their tiny village to assist her father, an Anglican priest. The pair share a he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not passion common among high schoolers.

It’s impossible to take a life even as short as Emily’s and tell its story in two hours, so some condensation of time is necessary. But O’Connor plays so fast and loose with the known elements of Emily’s life that the movie is less a biopic and more of a fever dream. The film’s gray darkness fits the tragic family’s life: The children’s mother died at 38, Emily at 30, Anne (Amelia Gething) at 29, Branwell at 31, Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling) at 38. Father Patrick (Adrian Dunbar) made it to 84, having buried everyone in his family.

In real life, there’s no evidence that Emily had an affair with Weightman. If anyone did, it was likely her sister Anne. Wuthering Heights did not inspire Charlotte Brontë to write Jane Eyre, which was published a few months before Wuthering Heights. Both books were published under male pseudonyms. That could have been something for Emily to focus on — the brilliant writer who must hide her true identity.

There are times in the film when camera angles make it seem as if the whole story may be taking place in Emily’s head. A shy outcast, she’s creating a more palatable version of her own life, because otherwise she’s no more than a hermit genius left to do housework — Cinderella with a quill pen and no prince.

Thanks to Mackey, a solid cast, and a true sense of isolation, Emily works as a movie for fans of Victorian costume dramas who prefer grim to prim. But as a biography of Emily Brontë? Not so much.

(Rated R. Premieres Friday, Feb. 24, in theaters.)

The title says it all. Penn grad Elizabeth Banks, who has portrayed over-the-top characters on Modern Family, The Hunger Games, and others, directed this comic thriller about a bear who wreaks havoc in a forest after ingesting more cocaine than a 500-pound bear needs, to go on an addled, murder spree. Loosely based on a true story. With Ray Liotta, in one of his final films, Keri Russell, and Margo Martindale. (Rated R. Premieres Friday, Feb. 24, in theaters.)

David Harbour plays a friendly ghost who inhabits the new home of Anthony Mackie. When his son puts the spirit on social media, unintended consequences are, of course, created. More funny than scary. With Jahi Winston, Tig Notaro. Directed by Christopher Landon (Freaky). (Rated PG-13. Premieres Friday, Feb. 24, on Netflix.)