Now, debut director Douglas McGrath adds to the glories of last year's Sense and Sensibility with his note-perfect adaptation of Emma, a film that is one of the most luminous and delightful offerings of the summer. Which is an achievement because Emma Woodhouse (Gwyneth Paltrow) is perhaps the most infuriating of Jane Austen's heroines: snobbish, meddlesome, obtuse, witty, beautiful, and rich. In short, she's as appalling as she is appealing.

The spoiled daughter of Mr. Woodhouse (Lou Coulson, who embodies the way Austen's supporting characters are equally endearing and annoying), the widowed, fussbudget owner of the luxurious Surrey estate of Hartfield, Emma has too much imagination and intelligence and too much time on her hands, especially after her friend and governess, Miss Taylor (Greta Scacchi), marries the easygoing Mr. Weston (James Cosmo). So she takes upon herself the direction of the lives of those about her -- including matchmaking. Having flattered herself into thinking that she was responsible for the wedding of Miss Taylor (one of McGrath's few alterations; in the novel Miss Taylor's departure is much regretted at Hartfield), Emma sees great things for her young companion Harriet Smith (Muriel's Wedding's wonderful Toni Collette), whom Austen describes as "the natural child of somebody." Emma's choice as suitor is Mr. Elton (a snooty, ultimately sad Alan Cumming), but her attempts to prompt Elton to propose to Harriet come to a hilarious and inevitable conclusion when he corners Emma in a coach and proposes to her instead.

The subtle slapstick of that scene is testimony to McGrath's comic skills (he wrote Bullets over Broadway with Woody Allen); his touch is less broad than Ang Lee's in Sense and Sensibility. Still, the scene's success, and that of the film, is due as much to the superb Paltrow, as her perfect face blushes, pales, and registers gradations of outrage, horror, shock, and calculation within a few moments. It's a flawless porcelain mirror that reflects not only the exuberance of her conscious designs but the slowly emerging recognition of truths and feelings that she's ignored or repressed. Few heroines have ever been so self-assured and so unerringly wrong in their judgments and actions as Emma, yet Paltrow exposes with limpid honesty the generosity and innocence that drives her character. This is the performance that will make people stop referring to her as Brad Pitt's girlfriend.

She's put in brilliant relief by Jeremy Northam's Mr. Knightley, Emma's neighbor, closest confidant, and shrewdest critic; he's one of the most decent characters in literature. Knightley is blunt to a fault, but Northam offsets his carping by drawing on the character's underlying tenderness and devotion. After Emma humiliates the sweet-natured but infuriatingly garrulous Miss Bates (Sophie Thompson, in her own way as good as her sister, Emma), Knightley takes her aside, and his expression of disappointment is so articulate and heated that Emma's shame and remorse can be felt. It's a compelling set-up to their bleak, climactic walk in the park as they try and fail and try again to come to grips with their feelings for each other. Despite all the drapery and lace, the scene is excruciating in its sexual tension and romantic suspense.

Not that all the great moments in Emma occur one-on-one. McGrath does justice to Austen's ability to gather several characters around a trivial social occasion and by gentle ironic orchestration lay their souls bare. Together with superbly limned supporting performances by the likes of Juliet Stevenson as the supremely crass Mrs. Elton and Polly Walker as the beautiful, reserved Jane Fairfax, as well as set designs, costumes, and a soundtrack that illuminate but do not overwhelm the human comedy they frame, Emma proves that cinema is up to the greatest that literature has to offer.