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Shakespeare meets Musicals in Kenneth Branagh's Love's Labour's Lost |
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Alessandro Nivola (King Ferdinand of Navarre), Alicia
Silverstone (Princess of France), Kenneth Branagh (Berowne), Natascha McElhone
(Rosaline), Carmen Ejogo (Maria), Matthew Lillard (Longaville), Adrian Lester (Dumaine),
Emily Mortimer (Katherine), Timothy Spall (Don Armado), Nathan Lane (Costard),
Richard Briers (Nathaniel), Geraldine McEwan (Holofernia), Richard Clifford
(Boyet), Jimmy Yuill (Constable Dull), Stefania Rocca (Jaquenetta)
Love’s Labour’s Lost
is one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known comedies. There is a reason for that –
it’s simply not that good (it’s certainly the weakest Shakespeare play
Branagh has brought to the screen). I’ve sat through some turgid, and
terminally unfunny, stage productions of the play in the past – but this movie
version presented something different, as Branagh plays fast and loose with the
script and turns it into an all-singing, all-dancing musical, with only the
barest sprinkling of Shakespeare dialogue.
LLL isn’t really
about anything. The King of Navarre (Alessandro Nivola), invites his three best
friends (Kenneth Branagh, Adrian Lester and Matthew Lillard) to join him in
three years of academic study, during the course of which they will forsake all
female company. Of course, no sooner than the deal is made but the Princess of
France (Alicia Silverstone) and her three companions (Natascha McElhone, Emily
Mortimer and Carmen Ejogo) arrive in Navarre. Will love blossom to prevent the
plans of the King? You betcha.
It’s slight stuff. The play always feels a little bit
unfinished – it ends with the lovers separated (or as the play puts it “Jack
hath not Jill”) but with hints of hope. It’s oddly structured – more like the
first part of a series of plays than a standalone (the lovers don’t get
together until almost Act 4, and the men and women spend very little
time together). There is a series of dull sub plots revolving around the
academics of Navarre, with whole scenes made up of obscure Latin jokes. As the
icing on the top, a clown and a foppish Spaniard form a bizarre love
triangle with a busty country wench. None of these plots is really resolved at
the end. It’s a play that focuses a lot more on floral dialogue and intricate
poetry rather than narrative.
Branagh addresses a lot of these problems by simply trimming
the play to the absolute bone. I would guess at least 65% of the dialogue has
been cut – probably more. Although this means some roles are now so small
they feel like sketches (in particular many of the more working-class
characters and academics), it does mean that this has a bit more
narrative thrust and energy than most productions. Moving the setting to
1939 also gives a good context to the play, and places the political issues into
an understandable context. It also gives a tension to underlie the lightness of
the rest of the play. Branagh manages to remove most of the cumbersome exposition
dialogue by replacing it with a series of 1930s-style cine-news reels (spryly
voiced by Branagh himself). He even resolves the “cliffhanger” ending of the
play with a similar device (reflecting the tonal shift at the end of the
original play), which helps to ground the otherwise lightweight play in a very
real world, where war carries a cost.
Of course, the main invention was to replace the intricacy
(and obscurity!) of some of the dialogue with song and dance routines. The
songs are carefully chosen from the great musical composers of the 1930s and
40s, and are delicately interwoven with the dialogue. Now for the purist this
could of course be a source of fury, but when the material is one of the weaker
plays, getting this “greatest hits” version of the text alongside some
excellent songs works really well.
The song and dance numbers also have a certain charm about
them. Most of the cast are not especially talented singers
and dancers – only Nathan Lane and Adrian Lester have song and dance
experience (and it certainly shows when Branagh allows them to let rip). The
actors went through an extensive “musicals boot camp”, which certainly taught
them the steps, but the musical numbers still retain a charming amateurishness
about them. Sure it helps a truly gifted dancer like Adrian Lester stand out,
but it’s also quite sweet to see actors like Richard Briers tripping the light
fantastic. (Check Lester out at around 3:10 in the video below).
The real issue with some of the actors chosen is less with
their song-and-dance strength, but that their acting strength doesn’t quite cut
the mustard. Branagh’s delivery and comic timing is spot on, and McElhone is a
worthy adversary cum love interest
for him; but Nivola and Silverstone are a little too out-of-their-depth to
bring much more than blandness to their key roles. Amongst the supporting
roles, Nathan Lane stands out in making Costard actually quite funny, but Lillard
mistakes gurning for wit. Mortimer and Ejogo are engaging but have precious
little screentime.
The film is shot with Branagh’s usual ambition on a set that
has a deliberate air of artificiality about it, evoking the classic 1930s
studio musical. All exteriors deliberately feel like interiors, and there are
homages aplenty, from Singin’ in the Rain
to Ethel Merman. Each musical number has its own unique feel and the majority
are shot with Branagh’s usual love of long-take. Some of the numbers stick in
the head longer than others – but that’s just the nature of musicals.
Particularly good are I Won’t Dance, I
Get a Kick Out of You, I’ve Got a Crush on You, Cheek to Cheek and a steamy tango to Let’s Face the Music and Dance.
LLL doesn’t want
to do anything more than entertain – and sometimes it probably tries a little
too hard to be light and frothy, as if Branagh was consciously kicking back
after the mammoth undertaking of his uncut Hamlet.
Perhaps that is why LLL appealed to
him – Shakespeare comedies don’t get less treasured or more inconsequential
than this, so he had total creative freedom to do what he liked, in a way that
a Twelfth Night or a Much Ado About Nothing wouldn’t allow
him. It’s the sort of film you need to plug into the mindset of – and some
aren’t going to be able to do that. It’s not a perfect film, but the lightness
Branagh handles things with pretty much carries it through.
Perhaps that lightness however is slightly the problem: in
Branagh’s previous films he found a perfect mixture between influential
reimaginings (Henry V), wonderful
crowd-pleasers (Much Ado) and
reverential labours of love (Hamlet).
People probably expected something else from him than a high-budget, lightly
amateur musical with precious little Shakespeare in it. I think this partly
explains the hesitant response this has received from the public and critics since:
it’s just such an unlikely ideal that
people didn’t seem to know how to respond to it.
Of course, as anyone who has sat through an average
production of the play can tell them, they weren’t missing much from what has
been cut – and this is still an infectiously funny, frothy concoction. It may
have a slightly mixed acting bag – some of the leads are underpowered, while some
strong actors like Timothy Spall are underused – but the actors do seem to be
enjoying themselves, and this enjoyment basically communicates to the audience.
It’s not a concept that could have worked with a long running time, but it sure
works for the short term. It’s an odd concept – and it was a huge box office
bomb – but it’s one that works.
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