As You Like It (2006)

Excellent, a Must See

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

To score this play 10 out of 10 is an insult. It was so sublimely executed. Utterly flawless in its presentation of the flawed fabric of our natures. If Lucifer were to seek my council and ask how he might elevate his gaze from his pismire prognostications about the human condition I'd recommend he watch this and then try to grow up some. Many of us see the worm in the weave but we tend to imagine it lends it character rather than destroying it. Paradise is not paradise without imperfection for love requires weakness to grow in compensation. Humility is hard learned and best achieved in degrees of defeat. A man defined by victories is a shallow and fickle thing. I stand here amid all my defeats prouder than I could have been if I had won the world. Shakespeare rocks and Brannagh brought that out with a vastly accomplished collective of actors and support crew. The Japanese theme in an English wood worked so well one wondered whether Britain might not be better suited to becoming part Japanese.

Kenneth Branagh takes the Bard to Japanese setting the time being the late 19th century.As You Like It (2006) tells about Rosalind, the daughter of banished duke.She is raised by his younger brother Frederick, who took over dukedom.She falls for a young man named Orlando, but also she is soon banished by Frederick.Her cousin Celia leaves with her.They go to the forest of Arden, and they take the fool Touchtone with them.And also, Rosalind is disguised as a boy, and she goes by the name of Ganymede, while Celia goes by the name of Aliena.Also Orlando happens to be in the same forest, fleeing the wrath of his older brother.William Shakespeare wrote the original, pastoral comedy, around 1599 or 1600.I read it some time ago.Shakespeare sure knew how to write of love, and it is all well adapted to the screen here.And there are also mighty fine players in this play.Let's start with Bryce Dallas Howard, whose work as a boy is almost as good as her work as a girl.Romola Garai is a real treat as Celia.Brian Blessed is great both as Duke Frederick as he is as Duke Senior.David Oyelowo is terrific as Orlando De Boys.Adrian Lester is very good as his brother Oliver.Richard Briers gives a very fine performance of Adam.Alfred Molina is superb as Touchtone.And so is Janet McTeer as his love interest Audrey.Kevin Kline is brilliant as Jaques.Jade Jefferies is marvelous as Phebe.This may not be the funniest thing I've ever seen, nor was the play the funniest thing I've ever read.Maybe I'm too modern and should think more medievally.But it all works because of the words, and the grand feelings it has to offer.And sure I found myself slightly amused when Phebe went head over heels for Rosalind/Ganymede.Branagh shows us that Shakespeare works also in a new environment, in a new era.

For me, Keneth Branagh's film adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like It was a sublime experience. It was late at night, my wife out of town visiting her family, and me, nothing much to do but fall asleep on the couch. But I stumbled upon HBO's broadcast of As You Like It, and I am transported. The setting was not Elizabethan England, but 19th century Japan. Why? Frankly, I don't know, but it worked for me, as I was immediately pulled in to this mythical land of families divided between those of hearts hardened by war and those who courageously broke away from unhappy dysfunction seeking the pure promise of passion and love. I found the setting equally striking with the dark brown colors of the warlord's house contrasted with the lush, magical, green forest of those longing for their lovers. I found the acting exuberant and joyful, not at all overdone, but appropriate for the subjects at hand: love, passion, melancholy, and the tearful reconciliation between waring brothers. For me, this was a beautiful work of art, and Branagh deserves nothing but praise for it all.

Seeing As You Like It, William Shakespeare's romantic comedy of mistaken identity brought back memories of an amateur production of the Carousel Theater here in Vancouver many years ago in which my son David played a small role. It was a wonderful presentation that thoroughly captured the genius of Shakespeare's delightful imagination. Unfortunately, the new filmed version by Kenneth Branagh with its big budget and professional cast is not in the least bit as convincing or entertaining. It is miscast, over produced, over acted, and simplistic with its multi-layered plot made easier to follow than Sesame Street.Set in Japan in the 19th Century after the country was opened to the West as a trading partner, the royalty of England have been reinvented as wealthy merchants living on the Japanese seacoast. Neither the opulent backgrounds nor the conceit of the script, however, has any impact on either understanding or enjoyment of the play and the setting seems to be simply a marketing decision not an artistic one. The film opens with a kabuki scene at the court of Duke Senior (Brian Blessed). His brother Frederick, also played by Blessed with black hair, interrupts the proceedings to forcibly overthrow his brother's dukedom and the elder Duke is banished to the Arden Forest. Orlando, played by the Nigerian born David Oyelowo, and his brother Oliver (Adrian Lester) then proceed to fight over their position in the court.Oliver, aligned with Frederick, entices his brother to take on a 300-pound sumo wrestler to all but certain doom but, as the script will have it, the underdog prevails in spite of a weight differential of about 150 pounds. In addition to being victorious at sport, he also falls for one of his well-wishers, the attractive Rosalind (Bryce Dallas Howard), daughter of Duke Senior. Fearful of her safety at the court, Rosalind, pretending to be a man and, taking the name of Ganymede from the handsome cup bearer to the Gods in Greek mythology, sneaks out with her cousin Celia (Romola Garai) and the clown Touchstone (Alfred Molina) to seek out her father in the Forest of Arden. Soon they are joined by Orlando who also fears for his life after a fight with his brother Oliver over their inheritance.Before long, a bunch of other personages wander into the film including a melancholy philosopher named Jaques (Kevin Kline) who is described as "an exiled courtier", a young shepherd Silvius (Alex Wyndham) who pursues his reluctant girlfriend Phebe (Jade Jefferies), and others. Curiously, there are two characters named Jaques and two named Oliver, something that most writers would go to any length to avoid. The play is best noted for the cynical soliloquy chronicling the seven ages of man, "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts", delivered with properly dour expression by Kline.It would not be a Shakespearean comedy without some gender confusion and Rosalind, after noticing Orlando's love poems neatly positioned on trees all over their neck of the woods, knows that Orlando loves her. Approaching Orlando in her boy disguise as Ganymede, Rosalind endeavors to teach him the finer points of courtship if he would just pretend that he is a she. She uses her charm to seduce Orlando, but also is drawn reluctantly into a relationship with the shepherdess Phebe. In Elizabethan conventions, this meant that a boy playing the girl Rosalind would dress as a boy and then be wooed by another boy playing Phebe.Quite naturally, this being a comedy and all, everyone ends up happy, (dramatized in a finale of the utmost silliness by Branagh) except for Jaques who, in character, decides not to return to the court. All the pieces are in place for the film to be successful but there are key elements that work against it. For the play to work at all, Rosalind has to be believable as a young man. If she is not, Orlando looks like a complete fool, and the play is robbed of its intended homoerotic playfulness. In this case, Branagh does not even attempt to have Rosalind look masculine and the scenes with Orlando in which he/she is teaching him how to express his love are unconvincing (unless you read it that Orlando goes along with the ruse and the author is simply making a statement about role playing, the masks people wear (himself?) in life, and the inauthenticity of self).Rosalind is supposed to be pure, innocent, perhaps a little naïve but definitely virtuous. Howard, however, is very un-maiden like in appearance and manner and lacks any noticeable chemistry with her lover. She tries so hard to put the correct inflections in the words that she robs them of whatever poetry they might have had, conveying the impression that she is trying out eagerly for a grammar school play. This is Branagh's fifth attempt to put Shakespeare on film and I'm sure it won't be his last. After achieving considerable artistic but not financial success with the first three, he has opted in this latest film for less of an artistic statement than an overtly commercial approach. Love's Labours Lost was an unmitigated disaster – scorched by the critics and shunned by audiences. Unfortunately, As You Like It may follow in its path.