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Review by Jeff Vice in the 11 April 2008 Deseret Morning News: http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695268949,00.htmlArticle by Carrie A. Moore in the 11 April 2008 Deseret Morning News: http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695268949,00.html
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Salt Lake Tribune
Emma Smith: My Story
2 1/2 stars
Info: Opens today at area theaters; rated PG for mild thematic elements and brief violence; 93 minutes.
This melodramatic biography depicts Emma Hale Smith (Katherine Nelson) as a dutiful wife and helpmate to her husband, Joseph Smith Jr. (Nathan Mitchell), during the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It also depicts her struggles - four of her 11 children died in childbirth, and two more died as babies - and credits her influence on such LDS staples as the Word of Wisdom and the Relief Society. The movie, co-directed by Gary H. Cook (who wrote it) and T.C. Christensen (who was the cinematographer) and produced under the auspices of the Joseph Smith Jr. and Emma Hale Smith Historical Society, is handsomely mounted and boasts gorgeous images and rich historical detail. But the movie is so stiflingly reverential that it would fit better in an LDS visitor center (alongside "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration," also directed by Cook and Christensen, with Mitchell and Nelson portraying the Smiths) than in a place that sells popcorn.
The DN review also gave it 2 1/2 stars
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“Emma Smith: My Story” tells the story of Emma’s life from her point of view. The story is told with Emma and her eldest Daughter Julia Murdock Smith having a discussion about life being difficult and having faith. The movie is a Morning Dew Entertainment production directed by Gary Cook and T.C. Christensen. I felt that the intent of this movie was to portray Emma Hale Smith in a non-biased way that would enlighten views to her life and her feelings.
The story starts off with Julia giving a brief description of who she feels that her mother is and the kind of life she has led. It then moves in to a visit between the two in which Julia is having a hard time being an unmarried woman, due to death and divorce. She asks her mother why life is hard and how she, Emma, dealt with having such a hard life. Emma then continues by telling Julia that it was by faith that she was able to endure her hardships. She gives several examples beginning with her childhood and then moves on throughout her life with Joseph Smith and then with eventually his death.
I felt that this story did a remarkable job at stating historical facts accurately as well as keeping an objective view on the events. One event that especially surprised me with how direct yet objective the movie portrayed it was that of polygamy. When Julia asks her mother how she could remain silent about something that hurt her so deeply, I was surprised that the play writers chose to have Emma respond with a direct response rather than sweeping the issue under the rug. Emma responded to Julia by saying that just because she didn’t speak of it then [during the visit] didn’t mean that she was always silent about the issue. The movie then goes on to tell about the subject of polygamy from an interesting point of view. Emma states that the revelation did in fact hurt her but that it hurt Joseph just as much if not more. This aspect surprised me, because even in the LDS religion you don’t hear of how it broke Joseph’s heart you only hear about how Emma was adamantly against plural marriage.
Another way that this movie surprised me was with it objectivity was with the death of Joseph. They portrayed it as martyrdom but made it seem less global and made it more personal. It caused the death to be Emma’s loss that the loss of a prophet to a church as is often the case in the story of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. I feel that this portrayal allowed the reader to view Emma and her reactions on a base level rather than having her on a pedestal to either stand on or fall from. This elevated my opinion of the movie greatly.
Overall I think that this movie was really well done, I did however feel that the movie dragged on in parts and that it could have been edited to make it a little shorter without imposing on the objectivity of the movie. I came away from this movie not sure whether to view Emma as a martyr like her husband in her own way or to view her as a traitor for not continuing on with Josephs vision of a new Zion; I am not sure that this is either a good or a bad thing but it affirms to me of the objectivity of the movie. I would strongly recommend that people see this movie, but go without expectations of the movie portraying Emma in a favorable light or unfavorable light.
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