The Love Punch
Perhaps one of the greatest British actresses of her generation, Emma Thompson is known for her portrayal of reserved women in period dramas and literary adaptations, but has taken on many diverse roles throughout her acting career.
She has won 2 Oscars, 2 Golden Globes, a Primetime Emmy Award, 3 BAFTAs, 2 Boston Society Film Critic Awards, and many more awards for her talents.
To celebrate the release of her most recent role in The Love Punch on Blu-ray and DVD on 18 August, we take a look back at some of her most notable roles.
- Saving Mr Banks
In 1961, the financially struggling author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) reluctantly meets with Walt Disney, who seeks to adapt her Mary Poppins books for the big screen.
Travers is exceptionally hesitant to give Disney film rights due to her story’s inspiration from her own past and her distain of animated films.
While working with Disney and his staff to develop the film, Travers is forced to confront her troubled past that inspired her story and discovers how to abandon her bitterness towards the world around her.
Emma Thompson has always been a strong performer and here she gives a performance that is worthy of awards attention.
- Brave
Princess Merida is a skilled archer and hot-headed daughter of King Fergus and Queen Elinor, who is voiced by Emma Thompson. Determined to carve her own path in life, Merida defies the custom to be betrothed to the son of one her father's allies and inadvertently unleashes chaos in the kingdom.
After a fight with Elinor, Merida turns to a witch for help and she is granted her wish to change her mother. However, the wish goes awry and Elinor is turned into a bear by the witch.
Merida is forced to work together with her mother to discover the meaning of true bravery in order to undo the curse before it's too late. Elinor was the embodiment of grace, wisdom and strength and Thompson captured this perfectly.
- The Harry Potter Films
Emma Thompson portrayed Professor Sybil Patricia Trelawney in the wildly successful Harry Potter franchise.
Trelawney is the quirky and slightly mad Divinations teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Due to her strange behaviour, she gained a reputation as a fraud, and is constantly being looked down upon by the other professors and students.
However, Trelawney is not totally inept, as she makes crucial predictions at different points in the series.
- Nanny Mcphee
In this film, which has a screenplay written by Thompson, the recently widowed Mr. Brown is struggling to find a caretaker for his seven mischievous children, who have managed to drive away 17 previous nannies.
In desperation, he hires Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson), a woman with a disturbing appearance and magical powers.
She takes control of the unruly children, protects them from their Aunt Adelaide when she threatens to take one of the children away, and even helps Mr. Brown in his pursuit for a new wife.
As the children learn to behave, the family is left with many questions about this mysterious stranger whom they have come to love.
Thompson did an astounding job as the loving caretaker, and one look at her character it's easy to forget that underneath the warts is one stunning actress.
- Love Actually
Love Actually follows the lives of eight different couples in dealing with their romantic lives in loosely interconnected stories during the month before Christmas in London, England.
Emma Thompson plays Karen, a stay-at-home mother and wife to Harry, the managing director of a design agency.
During the film, Karen struggles to keep her marriage together after she learns about a younger woman who has been pursuing her husband at work.
Thompson did a superb job in this role and captured the raw emotion of a woman dealing with her husband’s emotional affair.
- Sense And Sensibility
The recipient of seven Oscar nominations, this film version of Jane Austen's classic 1811 novel stars Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood.
Elinor, along with her mother and sisters, struggles financially after the death of her father, who bequeathed their estate to his crude son from an earlier marriage.
While organizing the family's affairs, the altruistic Elinor secretly falls for her stepbrother-in-law, Edward Ferrars, who is already engaged.
Thompson also wrote screenplay for the film, which won her the film’s sole Oscar for her adaption of the Austen novel.
- Howard’s End
Emma Thompson rose to fame and received awards for best actress in this adaptation of E. M. Forster's 1910 novel.
The story centres around average woman Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson), who inherits part of the estate of an upper-class woman whom she had befriended.
The interactions among the characters highlight the injuriously strict British class system of the early 20th century and the human need to connect with other people, despite petty judgements based on gender or class. The film was nominated for 9 Oscars.
- The Love Punch
Emma Thompson and Pierce Brosnan star as ex-husband and wife Kate and Richard whose retirement money is lost when Richard's investment firm is defrauded and the pension fund is wiped out.
When the pair learns that the devious French financier behind the scheme has just purchased a $10 million diamond for his fiancé, they decide to set aside their differences and devise a plan to crash the wedding and steal the diamond.
Through their collaboration in crime, the duo soon discovers that the flames of their former relationship have not been extinguished after all. Emma does it again and ‘owns’ this role as loving mother Kate.
The Love Punch is available on Blu-ray and DVD now, courtesy of Entertainment One.
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