With that couple married off, Emma looks for someone else’s business she might make her own, setting her sights on newcomer Harriet Smith (Toni Collette). Harriet seems to be doing just fine on her own, FYI. True, she’s not wealthy and she’s of illegitimate birth, but she still gets invited to parties. She even likes a guy who likes her back! But Mr. Martin is a farmer, and that’s just not gonna work for Emma, as her friend. Though she’s totally chill with farmers — it’s just that they’re, “the sort of people with whom I have nothing to do,” she politely informs Harriet. “A degree or two lower, and I might be useful to their families. But a farmer needs none of my help, and is therefore as much above my notice as he is below it.”This line sounded eerily familiar to some I’d read on all those lists of Most Irritating Gwyneth Quotes (one of which I wrote , full disclosure). A quick googling, and I found it : “I am who I am. I can’t pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year.” Maybe not as clever as Jane Austen, but the recipe is the same: Mix one part insult, two parts politeness — a Gwynethism if I’ve ever heard one.Emma knows what’s best for everyone — better than they know themselves, obviously — so Harriet becomes her next project. She orchestrates a series of meet-cute setups, trying to force Harriet to catch the eye of Mr. Elton (Alan Cumming), who seems like kind of a sleaze, but at least he’s no farmer. It’s a lot of idyllic walks in the countryside and telling riddles at dinner parties. (Honestly, Clueless, which is also based on the Austen novel, does this whole montage better.) In the end, of course, Mr. Elton professes his love for Emma, not Harriet, and the whole operation is blown because Emma is just too perfect. “Who can think of Miss Smith,” says Mr. Elton, “when Miss Woodhouse is near?”The only person who appears to see Emma as anything less than an actual angel on earth is Mr. Knightley (Jeremy Northam). He scolds her for being meddlesome and points out the fact that Harriet would have been lucky to marry Mr. Martin, not only because he’d have raised her social rank (hate the game, people), but because they were genuinely in love. Emma’s retort: “A farmer?!” But that’s the closest Emma will come to an all-out argument; she’s above that sort of nonsense. Instead, she just invites Mr. Knightley to have tea.