TWELFTH NIGHT
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: This is a light rollicking
Shakespeare comedy turned leaden and dour
apparently intentionally by director Trevor Nunn.
The 1890s look creates some logical problems for
the film without doing anything interesting to the
meaning of the story. Dim lighting and overly
restrained performances sap nearly all the spirit
out of a play that is usually a lot of fun.
Rating: high 0 (-4 to +4).
New York Critics: 10 positive, 1 negative, 6 mixed.
This is the film to take a Shakespeare fan to see so he will understand why so many people do not care for Shakespeare. Trevor Nunn put a lot of unconventional touches into this TWELFTH NIGHT. He took risks and in many cases demonstrated just how they were risks. I previously saw TWELFTH NIGHT performed in a San Jose park by a bunch of unknowns who passed a hat at the end. And I saw the Trevor Nunn film with respected professionals and highly paid name actors. It is surprising how much better the play was done in the park. Nunn is a director whom I have respected in the past. He directed the TV version of THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, the film LADY JANE, and more recently the PBS "Les Miserables in Concert." Each is good, and each is downbeat in tone. Perhaps that is the only tone with which Nunn feels comfortable, but TWELFTH NIGHT is about as downbeat a treatment as we could expect from this comedy.
The first of the problems is that Nunn had moved the story to the late 19th century for no apparent reason and adding no value to the story. A year ago Ian McKellan did a magnificent updating of RICHARD III, giving the film not just a beautiful look, but adding a great deal to the meaning of the story. No reason for the updated setting here is apparent and in some cases clothing details required by the story just do not fit with the dress of the characters in the film. While we are on the subject of the look of the film, the dim lighting does odd things to the tone of the film. Nunn chooses to light very much like this is a film noir production. There are a few sunlit scenes, but a great deal of the film seems to take place in semi-darkness with characters having half of their faces lit, the other half fading into the darkness of the background. Frequently there is one bright source of light in a scene and the rest is bathed in black. In a crime film it would have worked very nicely because it lends a powerful downbeat and oppressive feel. Using that sort of lighting in a light comedy is creative, but the effect fights what should be the tone of a film with characters like Sir Toby Belch (played by broad comedic actor Mel Smith) and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Richard E. Grant of "Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life").
The plot is as complex as many of Shakespeare's comedies. Viola and Sebastian are identical twins who are shipwrecked separately in a place called Illyria. Each is unaware that the other has survived, and each goes into the service of one of two rival dukes. In order to do this Viola has to dress as and pretend to be a man. She apparently does it very well since the Countess Olivia (Helena Bonham Carter) falls in love with her, thinking her to be a man. You can imagine the possibilities that a Shakespeare (or for that matter a Mozart) would see in male and female twins, otherwise identical and now actually identical since both now appear to be male. The Bard has his usual fun with mistaken identities and odd love alliances. For additional humor Shakespeare has peppered the plot with characters who often have humorous names and a subplot involving a puritanical servant, Malvolio (Nigel Hawthorne).
Viola is played by Imogen Stubbs who gets surprisingly low billing considering that she really is the main character. Her best known role is as Lucy Steele in SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, though if the reader wants to make a terrific film discovery, I can suggest her earlier A SUMMER STORY. Stubbs has the talent for the role, but has a hard time making herself even look like a man, much less make herself mistakable for Stephen Mackintosh, who plays her twin brother Sebastian. There is one really stunning performance in the film, and even that is not entirely obvious until the end: Nigel Hawthorne is actually very good as Malvolio. In his last scene he manages to turn much of the play upside-down. Another very good actor is used to much less effect. Ben Kingsley plays a sort of narrator and chorus, Feste. In the original he was the court fool, here turned into a wandering minstrel. This gives Kingsley what I think is his first and hopefully only singing role. Rounding out the cast is Helena Bonham Carter in a less pouting role than most of hers, but not one with which she did a whole lot. There is a lot of comedy in the play, but somehow nothing seems all that funny on the screen, due in large part to the restrained performances of the cast and the dour feel of the lighting.
Trevor Nunn's version of TWELFTH NIGHT does some things original but not a lot that really improve on the material. I rate it a high 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
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