TWELFTH NIGHT
A film review by Alex Fung
Copyright 1996 Alex Fung
(Fine Line - 1996) Starring Helena Bonham Carter, Richard E. Grant, Nigel Hawthorne, Ben Kinglsey, Mel Smith, Imelda Staunton, Toby Stephens, Imogen Stubbs Screenplay by Trevor Nunn, based on the play by William Shakespeare Produced by Stephen Evans and David Parfitt Directed by Trevor Nunn Running time: 125 minutes
Me: ** (out of four stars)
Note: Some may consider portions of the following text to
be spoilers. Be forewarned.
The onslaught of film adaptations based upon Shakespeare's plays in recent years (among them being RICHARD III, OTHELLO, and the upcoming HAMLET and ROMEO & JULIET) continues with Trevor Nunn's first feature in ten years, TWELFTH NIGHT, a comedy of mistaken identities and genders. Despite a cast with impressive credentials, the end result is a dreary film, punctuated with stacattos of bemusement.
After a shipwreck off the coast of fictional country Illyria separates twins Viola (Imogen Stubbs) and Sebastian (Stephen Mackintosh), Viola is distraught. Mistakenly believing her brother to be dead, she disguises herself as a young man and enters the services of Duke Orsino (Toby Stephens), and on his behalf attempts to court Countess Olivia (Helena Bonham Carter). Confusion reigns as Olivia instead falls for the disguised Viola, who's now going under the name "Cesario", while Viola herself becomes enamored with Orsino. Meanwhile, boozing Sir Toby Belch (Mel Smith) and wacky Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Richard E. Grant) mischievously torment Olivia's repressed manservant, Malvolio (Nigel Hawthorne), with a forged love letter.
Despite the classic material, the film seems to lose the comedy in the circumstances, and most of the laughs instead come from various reaction shots from the characters to the unfolding situations. The subplot involving Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Malvolio proves to be both overlong and completely disinteresting, and is saved only by a wildly amusing performance by Nigel Hawthorne from sinking the film.
The other bright spot in the film is a solid lead performance by Imogen Stubbs as Viola/Cesario. Possibly best known in North America for her performance as Lucy Steele in Ang Lee's SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (1995), here Stubbs invests a great degree of pluck in her character, making her performance eminently watchable.
The film's pacing suffers greatly from the subplot; after investing much time in setting up the situation and introducing the various characters, the film's momentum screeches to a halt midway through as the subplot is played out, before picking up again to the film's inevitable merry conclusion. TWELFTH NIGHT's look is surprisingly dark and cold considering the general tone of the material.
Commercial prospects for TWELFTH NIGHT are probably modest. The film lacks A-list star power, and will likely not generate the raving word-of-mouth required to convert this film into a mainstream hit. As such, TWELFTH NIGHT would probably expect a successful run in arthouse theatres.
TWELFTH NIGHT is a passable and relatively faithful adaptation of Shakespeare's classic play. However, it fails to exploit the inherent comedy of the situation, and one would expect more, particularly from a cast of such calibre given such source material. On my four-star scale, I give TWELFTH NIGHT two stars.
-- Alex Fung (aw220@freenet.carleton.ca)
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