As You Like It [DVD]

Kenneth Branagh's film of As You Like It received a pretty cool critical reception as I remember. Amazon reviewers don't appear to be overwhelmed either. I came to it with low expectations but enjoyed it far more than I ever hoped I would.

Yes - the 19th century Japanese setting is a bit of a problem. It is hardy what one expects to encounter in this play. The (Sumo) wrestling scene is frankly comical - I don't think Shakespeare intended us laugh hysterically at this point! More worryingly, Branagh tries to carry the Japanese setting over into the Forest of Arden. The main problem is that this is one of Shakespeare's most English plays. There are more songs in this play than in any other he wrote, though few of them make it into the film. We only get one verse of Under the Greenwood Tree and that is sung to a faux-Japanese arrangement that I, at least, find too incongruous to swallow. A bit like eating sushi with roast potatoes and gravy! But Shakespeare was a music lover - he knew what he was doing. The songs are an integral part of the play's atmosphere - but not here. However, the famous Pretty Ring Time makes it in by the skin of its teeth. The film ends with a very fizzy and up-beat arrangement of the song - an arrangement which (thankfully) owes more to Lionel Bart than to anything from the Far East.

So - that's the bad news. The good news is that the Japanese setting, with its immigrant communities, creates the impression of a "melting-pot" in which all cultures have a right to exist. Thus, the roles of the de Boys brothers are taken by black actors. David Oyelowo's Orlando is fine. And Adrian Lester finds much more in the role of Oliver de Boys that do most actors. The Forest of Arden, for all its Japanese trappings, becomes a kind of Never-Never Land, where identities can change, characters can mutate and everything can be just As You Like It.

The other performances are all fine - or, at least, they gave me pleasure. Bryce Dallas Howard is a warm and engaging Rosalind, convincingly boyish in the forest scenes and well able to maintain the important sexual tension between "Ganymede" and Orlando. Her English accent is pretty good as well - though the mask starts to slip in the Epilogue. Brian Blessed plays both Dukes. His Duke Senior is a mellow, mellifluous performance which completely gives the lie to his popular stentorian image. And the small but important role of Adam is entrusted to the safest possible pair of hands, belonging to Richard Briers. Kevin Klein is a serious, introverted Jaques and Alfred Molina does what he can with the severely pruned part of Touchstone.

The film isn't perfect. But I was left feeling that certain melancholy happiness which good performances of this play never fail to inspire - a feeling much aided by the final chorus of Pretty Ring Time! I enjoyed the film and I am sure others will too. It is a version to which I will certainly return and I guess it will be many years until we have another film version to match it.

I should have been warned when I looked at the DVD sleeve, declaring that the play was written by Kenneth Branagh AND William Shakespeare - a bit of hubris that the gods of theatre rightly punished. The conceptual stuff was all over the place; it was supposed to be set amongst the European trading community in 19th Century Japan, but, once Duke Senior had been ousted by Ninja warriors, we went back to 16th Century Europe - well, England, actually, and a Renaissance court. The "Japanese" concept was just used to give some pretty sets, and litter the Forest of Arden with over-large Japanese love-notes.It also required the audience to believe that Orlando would best a sumo wrestler who only needed to sit on him to crush him to death! Oh, and it made for pretty wedding dresses - but what on earth was the point??? It didn't even do what it said on the tin!

The Blessed Brian - sorry, Brian Blessed - was believable as both Dukes, dark and light, but the forest itself was far too pretty, making a nonsense of Orlando's comment "I thought that all things had been savage here." Kew Gardens is probably more dangerous. Amiens' speech about Jaques mourning a wounded stag - a mirror of the usurpation by Duke Frederick of his brother's rights -is completely cut, and in its place, we get the short comment from Duke Senior to Jaques about hunting venison of - "I know you like it not." Worse, when they actually come to eat, the Duke lifts the lid of the pot to prove to Jaques that it is meat-free, turning the melancholy philosopher into a sort of 16th Century vegetarian hippy.

The "Seven Ages of Man" speech really did not work for me; it was filmed from long-range, Kline speaking away from his "on-stage" audience - none of whom appeared to be listening anyway, and Kline's Jaques sounded as if he'd need Prozac to get to the end of it. I am a huge fan of Kevin Kline's, but it is only when the camera zooms into close-up on the "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." that the shiver down the spine reminds you of what a superlative actor he really is. Despite the SAG Award, this production wastes him.

The performance that almost moved me to tears was Richard Briers as Adam - pathos personified, and utterly riveting. For the rest, Romola Garai as Celia very nearly out-acted Bryce Dallas Howard's Rosalind. But, all in all, it was a messy, conceptually confused, production; Branagh seemed not to have the courage EITHER to up-date it OR to retain the original time period. In the end, I was just glad I'd borrowed it, not bought it!

I watched 'As You Like It' with a shakespeare novice and fully expected them to hate it. They really enjoyed the film and in fact it opened the world to shakespeare that my friend probably wouldn't have even entertained the idea of before. It is enjoyable and the setting is lovely. I agree with the other reviewer that setting the film in Japan didn't quite sit right. Overall an enjoyable film and a good film for Shakespeare virgins to watch!