In the fresh footprints of Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility, another Jane Austen adaptation. And in a word, it "delivers," in every bit as predictable a way as a Schwarzenegger action thriller. Or in a few other words, it meets but never exceeds expectations -- with the solitary exception of a shocking visitation of unprovoked cruelty on a harmless chatterbox by the otherwise high-minded heroine. For the amount of time spent first in feeling and then in analyzing the impropriety of this polite-society no-no, this is a remarkable scene (and remarkably well played by the piteously wounded Sophie Thompson, sister of Emma Thompson). It is no less remarkable in the context of this particular movie than in the context of movies in general. Part of the trouble, everywhere else in the narrative, is that writer-director Douglas McGrath (collaborator with Woody Allen on the script of Bullets over Broadway, an ominous sign) seeks out the laugh with complete lack of patience and discretion. Reducing Jane Austen to a laugh-jerker is a graver affront than any committed by her misguided characters. Jeremy Northam, an unstuffy Mr. Knightley, seems to be the only major cast member who does not view his job as that of making fun of his character. (McGrath manages to make fun of him without need of assistance, circling the camera around to reveal the stately mansion behind him as he utters the line, "I just want to stay here, where it's cozy.") To be sure, with the meddling and self-deluding Emma (Gwyneth Paltrow, she of two expressions, eyebrows up and eyebrows down), the mindlessly malleable Harriet (Toni Collette), the bullying and self-promoting Mrs. Elton (Juliet Stevenson, a bang-up performance, as far as it goes), et al., there is much to be made fun of. But the cumulative impression is of steady superficiality, uncommitment, uninvolvement, separateness. It's easy for the modern man or woman to feel distant from, more precisely superior to, the punctilious social slave of the early 1800s, and McGrath eagerly takes the easy way. Austen, could she rise from the grave, might have aimed a dart or two at his sorts of folly. (1996) — Duncan Shepherd