Customer Reviews

As You Like It

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This movie is beautiful! That's right. That's my whole review.
There are stylised Komonos and rich 1890-ish Western costumes. A pallette of amazing reds, maroons and rose colors set against a magical green forest with ancient towering trees and exotic oriental marshes.
The romantic comedy element is all about being in love; being giddy with all consuming love. The Shakespearean words are edited short and crisp and are delivered naturalistically and effortlessly by the likes of Kevin Kline and Brian Blessed. Of the leads, David Oyelowo stands out as a very masculine and handsome leading man and Bryce Dallas Howard (an American) more that holds her own with the mostly British cast.
Perhaps due to Branagh's pruning of the text, I also found listening to, and understanding As You Like It just as effortless as the actor's delivery. I'm not an English teacher nor an Elizabethean scholar and this movie spoke to me, taking me on a wonderful escape. (NOTE: Make sure to watch all the way through the credits!)
It is obvious that Kenneth Branagh puts his whole soul into his movies. Thank you Kenneth!

"As You Like It" is one of my favorite plays. Grounded in the tradition of Greco-Roman pastoral, the play asks the following question, via Jaques: If man, who is trying to escape the intrigues of court, escapes to the green cabinet of nature, will he not consequently bring the intrigues of court with him, and therefore ruin nature? Shakespeare answers this question, which seems very timely in our warming world of globalization, in the affirmative.

This film, which is peerlessly acted, gains nothing by its Japanese setting, which, admittedly scrumptious to behold, is merely distracting. I fully expected a mincing Gilbert & Sullivan chorus to break into "If you want to know who we are, we are gentlemen of Japan, on every vase and jar, on every screen and fan." I have no objection to updating, nor to removing the setting to another location--or as Shakespeare would say, to another part of the forest. Such a removal was successful in Trevor Nunn's "Twelfth Night," which was set in a Cornish "Illyria." It was also done with delightful tongue-in-cheek in the 1960s' "Midsummer Night's Dream," which focused on a stately British home, labeled "Athens." Furthermore, I even suspended my disbelief when Brannagh set "Much Ado about Nothing" in Tuscany (partly because I love Italy). In none of these cases, did the change of setting disrupt the illusion. By placing "As You Like It"--most of which takes place in the fantastical "Forest of Arden" (to which the characters refer repeatedly)--in the historical context of a violent nineteenth-century Japan, Brannagh disrupts the magic as irrevocably as if he had placed the first scenes in the 1930s' Leni Riefenstall-inspired glamor of the Third Reich and then had everyone escape to the Forest of Bavaria, still calling it the Forest of Arden.

Because Brannagh has already burst the bubble of Shakespeare's magic, his final metatheatrical conceit, of having Rosalind deliver the epilogue (full of gender-bending innuendo, since the part was originally played by a boy playing a girl playing a boy) among the actors dressing-room caravans, falls flat. I also think that Brannagh's moving scenes around, his making cuts (Touchstone, one of Shakespeare's greatest clowns, got lost somewhere in the forest), spoiled the rhythm of the play which takes on an incantatory magic in the "And I for Phebe, And I for Ganymeade, And I for Rosalind, And I for no woman" scene between the pastoral Silvius and Phebe, and the lovers Orlando and Ganymede/Rosalind.

I am also cross with Kenneth Brannagh for recycling the ending which was delightful and far more effective in "Much Ado" ("Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more!"), complete with the actors dancing in circles--all viewed from above among cascading rose-petals (Perhaps they were cherry blossoms this time.).

On the plus side, English subtitles were available, and, as I said, the acting is excellent and Rosalind is more than lovely to look at, as are the costumes.

Although I am generally a great fan of Kenneth Brannagh, I do wish he had left the Forest of Arden in its magical land of nowhere.

Incredibly, this seems to be the first version of Shakespeare's masterpiece of comic wit, As You Like It, in 70 years - since Laurence Olivier's disappointingly dry and frilly 1937 production! If for no other reason, true fans of the Bard will be grateful to Kenneth Branagh for this latest effort, although many of his decisions as director left me scratching my head.

As for mixing the Forest of Arden with the world of Shogun, I was basically neutral. Let Branagh have his artistic license with that one, although I admit it did make the scene where Orlando is attacked by a lion somewhat surreal. (Which may be why it happens off stage in the play.) And sure, the cinematography and landscape are stunning, but what really disappointed me was the way Branagh and the cast chose to play the key roles. As You Like It contains three of Shakespeare's most brilliant major characters: Touchstone the Fool, Jaques the melancholy cynic, and the incomparable Rosalind.

Touchstone trails in brilliance only behind Feste from Twelfth Night, and Lear's Fool from that great tragedy, but sadly, many of his best lines are either cut out of this version, or delivered by Alfred Molina in such a way that he just seems morose. He partially rescues the role with his facial expressions and physical slapstick, but Touchstone can be much more than the rude court goof that he is here. Kevin Kline does fairly well with Jaques, but inexplicably, one of the greatest minor speeches in all Shakespeare ("All the world's a stage...") is delivered in a distant, wide-angle shot with virtually no emotion, so you can't even tell Kline is speaking the lines until the very last words. It seems like they're being read off camera. Last but not least, Rosalind. If you agree with Harold Bloom, Rosalind is one of Shakespeare's three most brilliant minds, in the upper pantheon with Hamlet and Falstaff. She can spar with anyone, and bends the entire cast of As You Like It to her will. While Bryce Dallas Howard admittedly has a big job to do, she just keeps failing to nail the part. Unquestionably lovely and captivating in some scenes, she never quite reaches that saucy, fiery spark that puts Rosalind so far beyond other Shakespearean heroines. It doesn't help that Branagh barely attempts to maintain the cross-dressing fiction of the plot, having Howard play the role with her hair down for half of the movie, and even bathing nude in a stream in one (invented) scene. As a viewer I had no complaints, but you have to go to great lengths to suspend disbelief enough to imagine that Orlando still thinks Ganymede is a boy.

All in all, a charming production and long, long overdue. Three stars just for bringing it to the screen, and another for trying to be creative, but in all his zeal to experiment with the setting, the dialogue, the casting, and the production of this film, Branagh seems to have forgotten that you really better be careful if you're going to try to be more clever than the Bard.

Kenneth Branagh, aside from being a gifted actor with an enormous range of creative character abilities, has once again brought Shakespeare to life on the screen. His previous excursions into the bard's repertoire have included 'Much Ado About Nothing', 'Henry V', 'Love's Labour's Lost', 'Hamlet', and 'Othello', and now he adds one of the bard's most successful comedies AS YOU LIKE IT to his list of successes. Branagh has the gift of making the visual aspects of Shakespeare's stories enhance the language and in doing so he makes Shakespeare sound like brilliant conversation (which it of course is) instead of stilted and brittle old English.

The 'gimmick' used here by Branagh in adapting Shakespeare's play is placing the action in 19th century Japan, and while other less sensitive directors might have opted to insert parody here, Branagh instead makes the story seem all the more plausible - the two feuding brothers (one dark and one light) whose struggle over their estate opens the play before credits with an ingenious silent drama of black leather feudal costumed men invading a genteel house party of lovely people enjoying a Japanese dancer's performance. The original brother is banished with his clan to the Arden forest and there the magic begins. Love between several couples is played in all its manifestations with disguise, misconceptions, lust, and poetry until the play's rollicking end in a song of Hey Nonny Nonny!

The lovers include the disguised Rosalind (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Orlando (David Oyelowo), Celia (Romola Garai) and Oliver (Adrian Lester), the court fool Touchstone (a brilliant Alfred Molina) and Audrey (Janet McTeer), and Sylvius (Alex Wyndham) and Phoebe (Jade Jefferies). Brian Blessed plays the roles of both feuding brothers with style and authority, and Kevin Kline offers a fully realized Jaques - the character who is given the most memorable soliloquies in the play. The settings and imagery (Tim Harvey) are artistic and beautiful and captured with style by cinematographer Roger Lanser, and as with all of Branagh's production the music score (here by Patrick Doyle) is letter perfect and atmospheric.

But in the end the kudos go to Kenneth Branagh for his consistent courage and conviction that Shakespeare's plays are timeless, and his devotion to bringing them to the contemporary audience is to be applauded. This is a fine film - one to own! Grady Harp, August 07

This is my first review at Amazon.com despite being a customer for countless years, but I felt compelled to add my praise to what is undoubtedly a very polarizing version of "As You Like It". Like other reviewers, this is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, for reasons that were not clear even to me until today. And like others, I was initially taken aback by the Japanese setting and conglomeration of styles and cast (I watched this on an airplane and initially thought I had chosen the wrong movie!). But as it went on, I fell in love with the diversity and power of the production. I had just come back from one of the most difficult trips and days of my life, and the theme that shone through most clearly to me in the movie--finding joy even in adversity--was just what I needed. The thought that this modern production of words penned by someone dead for 400 years uplifted me in a way I can hardly describe. It showed that some things--love, poetry, kindness, humor--can transcend all time and space. By the end I felt held in a place of pure joy, which I think is what has always drawn me to the Forest of Arden. If you are a purist, I can't promise you will love this, but if you want to be truly enraptured by the passion and wit of Shakespeare's words I cannot recommend it more highly.

Can a Shakespeare gender-bending comedy ever work on film? Onstage one buys the convention that a gorgeous woman can convince everyone that she is really a he, but I've yet to see it work on film. Bryce Dallas Howard is talented and gorgeous, but it takes another kind of sex appeal to play Rosalind. It takes a woman who isn't afraid to convincingly play a man! Kate Hepburn could have pulled it off, or a young Emma Thompson, but Ms. Howard never even attempts to walk in a man's shoes. That spoils the fun, the dramatic (and sexual) tension, and the plausibility.

As with every Branagh film, there's much to like: A brilliant opening that sets the stakes high, clear and specific actors' choices, gorgeous art design, yadda yadda, but frankly, I think Branagh was in love with his leading lady.

Usually, I prefer my opera or play set in traditional production, with the time frame, costumes and cast as plausible and realistic as possible. This movie is therefore a disappointment to me at the very beginning, with the background set to 19 century Japan and the de Boys brothers played by black actors. Director Kenneth Branagh's leisurely pacing does not help.

Strangely, as the story goes on and the action moves away from the Japanese "court" to the forest, I find myself gradually swayed by the excellent performance of every actor in the movie and begin to truly enjoy some of the best dialogues from Shakespeare.

Branagh really does a good job bringing the best out of his talented cast. It is obvious that they are all having a fun time. But the most attention getting has to be the two leading ladies. Bryce Dallas Howard's lips and Romola Garai's eyes are so lively and exuberant, one wonders how anyone can top their performance. Amazingly, the answer to that question is also right there on the screen. Kevin Kline's Jaques is subtle, true and touching at the same time. Just seeing him read "All the world's a stage..." is worth the price of the DVD already.

'Beautiful' seems to be the word of praise most used for this movie, and visually gorgeous it certainly is. It is probably worth watching for that alone. But this comedy, usually hailed as the most witty and sparkling of Shakespeare's comedies, turns into a sort of fest of overblown emotions without the wit to leaven them. It's not helped by its leading lady, Bryce Dallas Howard, who is a gorgeous and well-spoken Rosalind without a lot of range or irony. Only in the epilogue does she really show much spark. Simply speaking, you wish that the characters were taking themselves a little less seriously.

Branagh is, as always, a superb director, but it's the adaptation that's lacking slightly here. The much-debated Japanese setting is not terribly illuminating in any way, unlike his Hamlet transposition which skilfully used the 1848 pan-European setting to provoke reflection on the political and philosophical volatility of the time period and of the text -- a true feat. Here, a few title cards are thrown up with some vague historical background which is then forgotten; the film could just as well have taken place in a quasi-Japanese fairytale world (the equivalent of, oh, let's see, the English Forest of Arden!) without any feeble explanation. It's just pretty.

Romola Garai is a hilarious Celia, so much so that I found myself wishing she had played Rosalind. The other standout was Adrian Lester, who managed to convey a believably villainous but then instantly sympathetic Oliver. Branagh fans were hoping wildly for him to play Jaques or Touchstone; you'll be wishing that afterwards, too, as Kevin Kline was a good but rather monochromatic Jaques (if Branagh had cut the monologue before 'All the world's a stage,' it might have helped), and Molina's Touchstone was not often funny. (Really, that's what I keep coming back to--I ought to have been laughing my head off, and barely ever cracked a smile.)

The DVD is set at low volume, so be prepared to jack it up. Sadly, no director commentary, as I would have loved to hear Branagh talk about his creative shot choices and movement in detail. Instead, there's a crap 5-minute featurette that tells you nothing much about his creative process, but at least provides some behind-the-scenes shot of the genius at work to keep his fans satisfied.

The bottom line: a must-see, of course, for Shakespeare and Branagh fans, who will enjoy critiquing it and/or adoring it. Will probably do well for period-film-lovers based on its visual beauty.

It's like watching the cast of FIREFLY do Shakespeare and they're wearing their same costumes, that curious blend of Old West leather and buckskin and vaguely Asian silks, kimonoes, sashes. Branagh must have been inspired by Joss Whedon's version of the future as a mixed bag of racial and gender identities bumping up againat each other like pinballs in a magic machine, for he tries to recreate old Japan (hello, PACIFIC OVERTURES) and makes it playful, dangerous, enchanted fun, a land out of the course of current events, a land in which a black family of brothers could emerge as noblemen intermarrying into the daughters of the white, landed gentry without an eyebrow raised, even though it's the 1820s or 30s or 40s and in many parts of the world slave trade was not yet abolished.

Is the experiment a success? Maybe not, but Branagh brings an immense amount of vitality and bright autumn colors to his screen picture. You might almost believe it could happen, and such is the vivacity of his young leading lady, Bryce Dallas Howard, that even though she is technically ill-suited to play Shakespeare, she's well up to playing the Joss Whedon version given here. Her drag act is one double take after another, lowering and raising her voice along a tiny range, the same cute vocal inflections again and again--like Buffy's--but persuasive, too; she makes you believe she's having the grandest time in the world.

Why cast the Duke and his brother with the same actor (Brian Blessed, just about the most overblown ham since Lorne Greene in BONANZA)? It doesn't make a lot of sense, and to have one of them in white beard, another black, brings to mind the difference between Gandalf the Gray and Gandalf the White in LORD OF THE RINGS. If little Frodo and Samwise had come trailing after the pair I wouldn't have blinked an eye. For Branagh, it's all about the color scheme (I guess), which gives his AS YOU LIKE IT a strange visual unity, reds, yellows, the umber color of falling leaves.

I kept watching and watching and at the end, I turned to my cat and asked her, "Did you get *why* Rosalind had to dress up as a young man?" Or rather, why once it proved inconvenient for her to continue doing so, why didn't she just stop, reveal herself to Orlando? I've seen this play a dozen times before and never before have I had to ask a cat that question. Please comment and answer me, as Sylvia refused to say one way or another.

This is a wonderful adaptation of the play, but be advised that substantial script cuts have been made. Some of the nuance of the play has been lost, but overall the plot's integrity remains solid and the characterizations are consistent with the original script. My students enjoyed watching this video as a review for the test, but it doesn't substitute for a reading of the play. The epilogue is produced in a very clever way; I enjoyed that part the most. I would definitely recommend buying this video for classroom use.