WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: The eagerly awaited summer release of
Shakespeare's light fantasy tale of fairies and
dukes is surprisingly mundane. In spite of some
good acting by Stanley Tucci and Kevin Kline,
director Michael Hoffman brings little innovative
or interesting to the telling besides star power.
But the contribution of having familiar actors
instead of good unknowns in a Shakespeare play is
minimal. Rating: 5 (0 to 10), low +1 (-4 to +4)
There was a time when seeing a particular Shakespeare play might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. People would rarely have a chance to see two different companies performing the same play. Then it was sufficient to be simply providing Shakespeare. That is not so any more. Turner Classic Movies frequently plays the 1935 film version. It is not so long since PBS broadcast a BBC version. In fact, the Internet Movie Database lists nine TV versions and it does not list the comic version featuring the Flying Karamazov Brothers. If a filmmaker wants to do a new version of a Shakespeare play, it should be at least in some way very original. It should have something that the previous versions do not offer. Certainly two films that I thought did that were Kenneth Branagh's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and Ian McKellan's RICHARD III. The former managed to use diction that made following the dialog easy and a pleasure to follow. That and its pleasant Tuscan setting made the film a real joy. And McKellan's reframing of RICHARD III as an alternate history with a Fascist takeover of Britain in the 1930s stands as the single most exciting and inventive performance of Shakespeare I have ever seen. The new WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM was presenting a very familiar story, so with a fixed plot it should have been greatly creative in some other way. It should have been as innovative as those films. It was not.
Michael Hoffman adapted the Shakespeare play and directed. Hoffman did a beautiful job creating a sumptuous look and feel for the 1995 film RESTORATION, but his ideas were far less rich or original for WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. As the film starts we are immediately plunged into cliche with Felix Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream." It is a rather obvious choice and hardly one that is inspiring. The first original touch is to move the setting from ancient Athens to late 19th Century Monte Athene in Tuscany. But there is something of a problem there almost immediately. The play has many references to its setting, and there is an immediate dissonance to see Italy and hear it called Athens. It is also jarring to have characters whose names are Theseus, Demetrius, Lysander, Helena, and Hermia. The move of location is probably an attempt to repeat the effect that Branagh achieved with his Tuscan setting, but it really does not work the same sort of magic.
For those who do not know the story, I will say just briefly that Duke Theseus (David Strathairn) is preparing to wed Hippolyta (Sophie Marceau) when he is asked to settle a dispute between a father and daughter. Egeus (Bernard Hill, recently seen as the captain going down with the ship in TITANIC) has arranged a marriage for his daughter Hermia (Anna Friel) to Demetrius (Christian Bale). But the rebellious daughter instead loves Lysander (Dominic West). Another woman, Helena (Calista Flockhart), loves Demetrius. Getting involved into the action is also a traveling theater company preparing to put on a bad play about Pyramus (Bottom (Kevin Kline)). And as if that were not enough in another part of the forest is Oberon, King of Fairies (Rupert Everett) is having his problems with his queen Titania (Michelle Pfeiffer).
The stars of the film are really Stanley Tucci and Kevin Kline. Kline has a somewhat expanded role from the Shakespeare involving Bottom's wife who never appeared in the original play. These sequences have to be done without dialog since it is easier to do it that way than to get Shakespeare back to write lines for their interaction. Stanley Tucci is almost always a pleasure to watch on the screen. Here he does his rubber-faced thing a little too much and amazingly he overstays his welcome. But Calista Flockhart (TV's Ally McBeal) manages to out-rubber-face even Tucci and to almost achieve the level of a Macaulay Culkin (not appearing in this film, thankfully).
Sadly, the film is never as enchanting as it is supposed to be or even as it needs to be. Many of the intended magical elements turn leaden. Having Puck ride a bicycle again and again is just not all that whimsical. Having him ride a silly-looking plastic turtle intended to be real is even less so. Hoffman even has a mud-wrestling scene with Helena and Hermia. Really. The sequence of the play of "Pyramus and Thisbe" may be where some of the humor works the best in a sort of imitation Monty Python way. Still, this sequence comes off as gratuitous filler, but then it always did in the original play also, so that is not Hoffman's fault. Once one accepts the Italian setting, the use of Italian opera melodies is pleasant and does add to the mood, though when the same melodies are repeated one starts to wonder if there were not more to choose from.
In spite of the cast, this is a competent but unexceptional version of one of Shakespeare's more popular plays. I rate it 5 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1999 Mark R. Leeper
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