weinhold
Puritan Board Freshman
Kenneth Branagh's rendition of Shakespeare's As You Like It aired on HBO Tuesday. Did anyone get a chance to view it?
Here are two reviews:
From BostonHerald.com
http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=1018127
Hard to 'Like': Branagh's adaptation of Shakespeare comedy just a pretender
By Mark A. Perigard/ Television Review
Boston Herald TV Critic
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - Updated: 04:18 AM EST
How can someone stage "As You Like It" and botch the most crucial element?
Actor/director Kenneth Branagh adapts Shakespeare's classic comedy about mistaken identity and misreads the plot device for a footnote.
As anyone who read the play in high school knows, fair Rosalind disguises herself as a man so she and her cousin Celia can travel freely through a dangerous forest. There they encounter Rosalind's beloved, Orlando, and as "the fair youth" Ganymede, Rosalind tests the limits of Orlando's devotion to her.
As Rosalind pretending to be Ganymede, Bryce Dallas Howard ("The Village") wears trousers, ties her hair in a ponytail and puts a cap on her head.
It's as if Julia Roberts went out to the park to ride horses one day. Howard does nothing to change her mannerisms or her voice. She wouldn't fool a corpse.
Nobody's expecting something akin to Hilary Swank's Oscar-winning turn in "Boys Don't Cry." But even Gwyneth Paltrow tried to be convincing in her Oscar-winner, "Shakespeare in Love."
The Bard's satire of gender politics - which culminates in a mock wedding between Orlando and Ganymede - is robbed of its edge.
(Mind you, your brain gets all twisty when you recall that in Shakespeare's day, boys played the girls' roles - so Rosalind would have been played by a boy pretending to be a girl pretending to be a boy.)
Branagh places this version in 19th century Japan, for apparently no other reason other than to make the opening moments seem like a Jackie Chan film. Masked warriors storm a home and stage a military coup.
So what is to like about "As You Like It"? The supporting cast is superb. Alfred Molina, dressed like Charlie Chaplin's The Tramp, through the forest greenery as the court jester Touchstone.
Romola Garai ("Vanity Fair") takes a few pratfalls as faithful Celia. As Orlando, David Oyelowo ("MI-5") sparks the screen. Unfortunately, his character seems terminally dumb for falling for Rosalind's charade.
As the melancholy Jaques, Kevin Kline is assigned the play's most enduring dialogue ("All the world's a stage . . ."), but Branagh undercuts the moment by filming Kline at a distance and through some forest branches.
Who knew a comedy about cross-dressing could be such a drag?
"As You Like It" Tuesday at 9 on HBO. Grade: C+
* * * * *
From the NYT:
Television Review | 'As You Like It'
Enough Already, Rosalind, Let the Kooks Talk
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
Rosalind, the droll heroine of "As You Like It," doesn't thrill Kenneth Branagh.Mr. Branagh maintains that Rosalind - the character who Harold Bloomhas argued is the first modern lover in all of literature - talks too much.
"She does go on a bit," Mr. Branagh said, blandly explaining his resizing of the part to a reporter for The Los Angeles Times.
Or maybe it's Bryce Dallas Howard, the daughter of the American mega-director Ron Howard, whom Mr. Branagh wants to muzzle. Ms. Howard plays Rosalind in Mr. Branagh's "As You Like It," which comes to HBO tonight. She's what passes for an American starlet in a cast pervaded by thespians, including Janet McTeer and Kevin Kline, and Mr. Branagh's hoary favorites Brian Blessed and Richard Briers.
As the poised and decorous child of Hollywood, the new Gwyneth Paltrow, Ms. Howard has been chosen to redeem all those emaciated club-kidstarlets with her capacity to learn lines and accents. Having played Rosalind at the Public Theater in New York, she should really be gunning it here, staring down actors like the dashing Nigerian David Oyelowo and the irresistible British comic actress Romola Garai.
Who knows how she might have fared? Here she plays an abbreviation. Mr. Branagh has teased out every manly rivalry and preserved every hey-nonny-nonny of the kooks in the Forest of Arden, but slashed passages of the repartee that defines Rosalind. Celia (Ms. Garai), a bright blonde who made the BBC mini-series " Daniel Deronda" a triumph, doesn't merely steal the first scenes they share. They've been handed to her, as to a favored daughter.
What's more, it initially seems that Mr. Branagh, who doesn't appear in this straight-to-cable film, won't even give us a good look at Ms. Howard. She snuffles and snivels in her opening scenes, muffling her speech. And in her first exchange with Orlando (Mr. Oyelowo), she speaks from behind a fan, as if Mr. Branagh wanted to leave open the possibility of later dubbing.
Mr. Branagh has set his "As You Like It" in 19th-century Japan, among British and other profiteers who have shown up to take advantage of its open ports (or so a prefatory card explains). The use of tatami mats and rice-paper screens allows for surprising, minimalist shapes, as in the scene when Celia and Rosalind lie together discussing their woes. The modernist decor sets off their Victorian costumes, and it's a lovely collision.
Before the cross-dressing begins and the farce gains speed in the Forest of Arden (played by the moderately Asian-looking Wakehurst Place in West Sussex, England), the movie looks murky. This was a flaw of Mr. Branagh's winning "Henry V," and he seems married to his ochre-maroon palette, even in this love story. But if he plans on making other television films, someone should tell him that people often watch TV during the day, in scattershot light. I watched with drawn curtains and still was hardly able to make out faces in several scenes.
With Rosalind sporadically benched, the tension between Orlando and his murderous brother, Oliver (Adrian Lester, who has played Rosalind in an all-male production), has been amplified. Mr. Lester brings spirit and intelligence to what is typically a caricature. His beleaguered contempt for his brother - audible in the cry "He's gentle!" - is gorgeous.
Mr. Kline delivers Jaques's beloved "All the world's a stage" soliloquy to images of nature and the sound of chirping birds. (A lion later intrudes in a scene between Orlando and Oliver; nature is fully incorporated into stagecraft here.) This is odd, and it misuses Mr. Kline, who seems unable ever to hit a false note. As a thoroughgoing depressive here, he brings some clairvoyance to melancholy, which suits him.
Mr. Kline has, without fanfare, become a kind of elder statesman of American acting, with no taint on him. His face is so kindly and his voice so unforced that viewers can't help wanting the satisfaction of seeing him cover the big hits; it's not fair to deny us his face during this speech. In contrast, Alfred Molina, as the gonzo Touchstone, skillfully monopolizes every inch of the screen when he's clowning.
Fortunately, Mr. Branagh hasn't forgotten Rosalind altogether, and around the midpoint of the film he has no choice but to let his leading lady lead. Ms. Howard makes a passable Victorian young man. And Rosalind's in-drag seduction of Orlando has a kind of "Brokeback Mountain" manliness. The firm handshake is hot.
Finally, "As You Like It" mellows and turns to soft focus. Rosalind pulls off her bossy-girl antics in the woods. The worry over the dukes and the fussy, bloody politics recedes, and - though Mr. Branagh still refuses to turn up the lights much - the many lovers join. This is "As You Like It" as we like it.
Here are two reviews:
From BostonHerald.com
http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=1018127
Hard to 'Like': Branagh's adaptation of Shakespeare comedy just a pretender
By Mark A. Perigard/ Television Review
Boston Herald TV Critic
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - Updated: 04:18 AM EST
How can someone stage "As You Like It" and botch the most crucial element?
Actor/director Kenneth Branagh adapts Shakespeare's classic comedy about mistaken identity and misreads the plot device for a footnote.
As anyone who read the play in high school knows, fair Rosalind disguises herself as a man so she and her cousin Celia can travel freely through a dangerous forest. There they encounter Rosalind's beloved, Orlando, and as "the fair youth" Ganymede, Rosalind tests the limits of Orlando's devotion to her.
As Rosalind pretending to be Ganymede, Bryce Dallas Howard ("The Village") wears trousers, ties her hair in a ponytail and puts a cap on her head.
It's as if Julia Roberts went out to the park to ride horses one day. Howard does nothing to change her mannerisms or her voice. She wouldn't fool a corpse.
Nobody's expecting something akin to Hilary Swank's Oscar-winning turn in "Boys Don't Cry." But even Gwyneth Paltrow tried to be convincing in her Oscar-winner, "Shakespeare in Love."
The Bard's satire of gender politics - which culminates in a mock wedding between Orlando and Ganymede - is robbed of its edge.
(Mind you, your brain gets all twisty when you recall that in Shakespeare's day, boys played the girls' roles - so Rosalind would have been played by a boy pretending to be a girl pretending to be a boy.)
Branagh places this version in 19th century Japan, for apparently no other reason other than to make the opening moments seem like a Jackie Chan film. Masked warriors storm a home and stage a military coup.
So what is to like about "As You Like It"? The supporting cast is superb. Alfred Molina, dressed like Charlie Chaplin's The Tramp, through the forest greenery as the court jester Touchstone.
Romola Garai ("Vanity Fair") takes a few pratfalls as faithful Celia. As Orlando, David Oyelowo ("MI-5") sparks the screen. Unfortunately, his character seems terminally dumb for falling for Rosalind's charade.
As the melancholy Jaques, Kevin Kline is assigned the play's most enduring dialogue ("All the world's a stage . . ."), but Branagh undercuts the moment by filming Kline at a distance and through some forest branches.
Who knew a comedy about cross-dressing could be such a drag?
"As You Like It" Tuesday at 9 on HBO. Grade: C+
* * * * *
From the NYT:
Television Review | 'As You Like It'
Enough Already, Rosalind, Let the Kooks Talk
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
Rosalind, the droll heroine of "As You Like It," doesn't thrill Kenneth Branagh.Mr. Branagh maintains that Rosalind - the character who Harold Bloomhas argued is the first modern lover in all of literature - talks too much.
"She does go on a bit," Mr. Branagh said, blandly explaining his resizing of the part to a reporter for The Los Angeles Times.
Or maybe it's Bryce Dallas Howard, the daughter of the American mega-director Ron Howard, whom Mr. Branagh wants to muzzle. Ms. Howard plays Rosalind in Mr. Branagh's "As You Like It," which comes to HBO tonight. She's what passes for an American starlet in a cast pervaded by thespians, including Janet McTeer and Kevin Kline, and Mr. Branagh's hoary favorites Brian Blessed and Richard Briers.
As the poised and decorous child of Hollywood, the new Gwyneth Paltrow, Ms. Howard has been chosen to redeem all those emaciated club-kidstarlets with her capacity to learn lines and accents. Having played Rosalind at the Public Theater in New York, she should really be gunning it here, staring down actors like the dashing Nigerian David Oyelowo and the irresistible British comic actress Romola Garai.
Who knows how she might have fared? Here she plays an abbreviation. Mr. Branagh has teased out every manly rivalry and preserved every hey-nonny-nonny of the kooks in the Forest of Arden, but slashed passages of the repartee that defines Rosalind. Celia (Ms. Garai), a bright blonde who made the BBC mini-series " Daniel Deronda" a triumph, doesn't merely steal the first scenes they share. They've been handed to her, as to a favored daughter.
What's more, it initially seems that Mr. Branagh, who doesn't appear in this straight-to-cable film, won't even give us a good look at Ms. Howard. She snuffles and snivels in her opening scenes, muffling her speech. And in her first exchange with Orlando (Mr. Oyelowo), she speaks from behind a fan, as if Mr. Branagh wanted to leave open the possibility of later dubbing.
Mr. Branagh has set his "As You Like It" in 19th-century Japan, among British and other profiteers who have shown up to take advantage of its open ports (or so a prefatory card explains). The use of tatami mats and rice-paper screens allows for surprising, minimalist shapes, as in the scene when Celia and Rosalind lie together discussing their woes. The modernist decor sets off their Victorian costumes, and it's a lovely collision.
Before the cross-dressing begins and the farce gains speed in the Forest of Arden (played by the moderately Asian-looking Wakehurst Place in West Sussex, England), the movie looks murky. This was a flaw of Mr. Branagh's winning "Henry V," and he seems married to his ochre-maroon palette, even in this love story. But if he plans on making other television films, someone should tell him that people often watch TV during the day, in scattershot light. I watched with drawn curtains and still was hardly able to make out faces in several scenes.
With Rosalind sporadically benched, the tension between Orlando and his murderous brother, Oliver (Adrian Lester, who has played Rosalind in an all-male production), has been amplified. Mr. Lester brings spirit and intelligence to what is typically a caricature. His beleaguered contempt for his brother - audible in the cry "He's gentle!" - is gorgeous.
Mr. Kline delivers Jaques's beloved "All the world's a stage" soliloquy to images of nature and the sound of chirping birds. (A lion later intrudes in a scene between Orlando and Oliver; nature is fully incorporated into stagecraft here.) This is odd, and it misuses Mr. Kline, who seems unable ever to hit a false note. As a thoroughgoing depressive here, he brings some clairvoyance to melancholy, which suits him.
Mr. Kline has, without fanfare, become a kind of elder statesman of American acting, with no taint on him. His face is so kindly and his voice so unforced that viewers can't help wanting the satisfaction of seeing him cover the big hits; it's not fair to deny us his face during this speech. In contrast, Alfred Molina, as the gonzo Touchstone, skillfully monopolizes every inch of the screen when he's clowning.
Fortunately, Mr. Branagh hasn't forgotten Rosalind altogether, and around the midpoint of the film he has no choice but to let his leading lady lead. Ms. Howard makes a passable Victorian young man. And Rosalind's in-drag seduction of Orlando has a kind of "Brokeback Mountain" manliness. The firm handshake is hot.
Finally, "As You Like It" mellows and turns to soft focus. Rosalind pulls off her bossy-girl antics in the woods. The worry over the dukes and the fussy, bloody politics recedes, and - though Mr. Branagh still refuses to turn up the lights much - the many lovers join. This is "As You Like It" as we like it.
