BEFORE: How about this for timing, I had put this film on my list at the start of the year, because it seemed to be a film that could serve a function, I already had two films with Emma Thompson on the romance list (OK, 3, but it looked like I couldn't put them all together in a row) so I needed another film to serve as the outro for "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande". At the time this film was only on streaming, on a couple services like Pluto and Roku, easy enough for me to watch it. But THEN it got programmed for the WNET/13 "Saturday Night at the Movies" block for LAST WEEKEND, just in time for me to record it and then have it handy on the DVR, which meant I could watch it in the comfort of the recliner in the living room, and not at my desk upstairs, where the computer is. I mean I was going to watch it today either way, but it's very nice of the universe to make it easier for me. So Emma Thompson carries over again from "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande".
By no means is this a last-minute drop-in, this is just one of those films that you keep on the "someday/maybe" list not because you're in a hurry to watch it, but because you never know, there could be a need to quickly connect the ends of two smaller chains in order to make a larger one and complete the month. It would have been a bigger coincidence if TCM were showing something written by The Bard today, only that wasn't in the cards.
But here's the schedule for day 14 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming, the themes for Thursday, February 26 are "Oscar Goes on Strike" and "Oscar Goes to Italy":
10:00 am "Black Fury" (1935)
11:45 am "The Organizer" (1963)
2:00 pm "The Valley of Decision" (1945)
4:00 pm "Harlan County U.S.A." (1976)
6:00 pm "On the Waterfront" (1954)
8:00 pm "Roman Holiday" (1953)
10:15 pm "A Room With a View" (1985)
12:30 am "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999)
3:00 am "Death in Venice" (1971)
5:15 am "Indiscretion of an American Wife" (1953)
Jeez, I've never even HEARD of some of these films. How am I supposed to have watched these films if they're totally off the radar. Not for nothing, but who plans a program of films about people going on strike and leaves out "Norma Rae"? This is some B.S. because I've only seen 5 of these, and I'm counting "Death in Venice" because they made me watch that in junior high. I've also seen "On the Waterfront", "Roman Holiday", "A Room With a View" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley". So 5 seen out of 10 brings me up to 62 seen out of 155, which is exactly 40%.
THE PLOT: Young lovers Claudio and Hero, soon to wed, conspire to get verbal sparring partners and confirmed singles, Benedick and Beatrice, to wed as well.
AFTER: Some more coincidental timing - Emma Thompson was on "Late Show" Monday night answering the Colbert Questionert, but our cable was out, so I didn't get to see that until tonight, right after "Much Ado About Nothing". Even MORE coincidental timing, the same day I'm reviewing a Shakespeare film, I had to work a screening of "Hamnet" at the theater. Sure, I know one is based on a play and the other is based on Shakespeare's life, but still, I'll take it as a sign that I'm in the right place, watching the right movie. Sure, I'd love to watch "Hamnet" but it doesn't fit into my chain right now and anyway, I'll be working during the screening.
Of course, this film was made back when Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson were married to each other, they were kind of the "it" couple of British indie films back in the 1990's. What's weird to me is that hardly anyone seems to remember this - of course, they've both moved on and they've both had long careers in the film business, but separately after making a bunch of films together. Another weird thing is that both of them came to the theater where I work, separately but within a couple months of each other - Branagh was there to promote his film "Belfast" and after that, Ms. Thompson showed up at a screening of "Matilda", the remake film which was based on the stage musical, which in turn was based on the movie which was based on a book. I think I was the only one who worked both of those shifts, and again, nobody else seemed to notice or care about this, it was just another gift from the universe to me.
Anyway, let's get on to "Much Ado About Nothing", whose title may be a play on words, with the now-archaic word "noting" which meant gossip or rumor - there is a wedding that becomes undone due to a false rumor, which means an accusation that turned out to be nothing, but before it was proven to be nothing there was a lot of ado, or fuss about it. At the start of the play, a group of soldiers return to Messina, Italy (Tuscany in the film) and immediately all of the men bathe and the women shower, you know, as you do. It's a little weird that then men all bathe together in a pool and the women shower in a big collective shower, but you know, it was a different time. Individual shower stalls came along much later, so really it was all a big naked fun-fest and nobody cared - except PBS, who apparently felt the need to blur all the butts, and there were a LOT, just as many butts as there are characters, all bathing together, nothing weird about that at all. I suppose today if you saw a bunch of naked men together in a pool or a large group of women in a big shower you might draw some different conclusions. I imagine in the 1990's there might have been some big fuss over screening this film for junior high students, what with all the bathing nudity. Much Ado About Butt-things?
But once everyone's all cleaned up, romantic possibilities emerge. One of the soldiers, Claudio, is attracted to Hero, the daughter of the governor (mayor?) of the town. Don Pedro, the prince just back from the war, thinks they'd make a great couple, while Benedick, a lord and soldier, is against all marriages, they're not for him. Anyway, Don Pedro suggests a masked ball, during which he will woo the young lady Hero, disguised as Claudio, and then step back and let the couple get married. Evil Don Jon, Don Pedro's brother, gets inside Claudio's head, however, and suggests that Don Pedro's really going to woo Hero for himself, and suddenly everything is in doubt. Never fear, Don Pedro is true to his word, Hero doesn't mind that one man danced with her and now she gets to marry a different man. Wow, Pedro must have REALLY talked up Claudio, or Hero must be that desperate.
Meanwhile, Benedick endures sarcastic comments during the masked ball from Beatrice, who is Leonato's niece and therefore Hero's cousin. One might suspect that even though Benedick was in disguise, she really knew who she was talking to, and she probably found it funny to insult Benedick right to his face. Anyway, these two have had a war of words going on for years, so they either genuinely hate each other or are secretly in love, or, you know, maybe a bit of both. Since it's a few days to the wedding, everyone decides to have a bit of fun and so the guys go where they know Benedick can hear them and start talking about how Beatrice secretly loves him, and the female characters do the same thing, they go where Beatrice can hear them and talk about how madly in love with her Benedick is. This is just crazy enough to work, both people enjoy hearing about how another person loves them, and they resolve to stop arguing and get together to see if they can get along and love each other. Wow, that was pretty easy!
But then comes the nasty stuff, Don John has his associate, Borachio, go to Hero's bedroom and start making out with Hero's chambermaid, who he sees on the regular. Don John tells Don Pedro and Claudio that Hero has been "disloyal" and when they check it out, they see Borachio making out with the maid (who happens to be Hero's size and have the same hair color) with Borachio screaming out Hero's name. So Claudio's pretty sure that Hero's no longer a virgin and also not really worthy of marrying.
It's a scene at the wedding the next day, because Claudio calls Hero unfaithful in front of absolutely everyone, and he storms off with Don Pedro. Hero faints and her father, Leonato, expresses his disappointment, wishing her dead. But the friar still believes that Hero is innocent, and suggests that the family fake Hero's death from shame so that Claudio will be remorseful and, I don't know, change his mind or something. Meanwhile, the stress of the wedding causes Benedick and Beatrice to declare their love for each other, however Beatrice asks Benedick to prove his love by killing Claudio, the man who she says has disgraced her cousin with a lie about her morals before calling off the wedding.
Meanwhile, the local Watch who are a bit inept, and led by the even more inept constable, Dogberry) overhear Borachio and his buddy bragging about the "treason" and "deception" that they pulled off, without really getting into details. So the Watch arrest them, with the goal of figuring out exactly what they did at a later time - but really, they need to arrest them while they can, and they'll never get a better chance. Through use of a town official asking the right questions, they (eventually) determine what these two did that was so wrong and report their findings to Leonato - well, their confession does prove Hero's innocence and Claudio's understandable misunderstanding over what he saw, so Leonato sees a way to move forward with the wedding, after Claudio expresses his regret over accusing Hero and causing her death from shame, Leonato says Claudio can marry his niece, who is nearly Hero's "identical cousin".
Claudio agrees, but of course that isn't Hero's cousin, it's the very alive Hero herself. Everybody wins out, except the evil Don John who left town. They send some soldiers out to catch him, but they've got a wedding to get back to! Actually two weddings, because Benedick and Beatrice now want to get married, too, and Benedick no longer has to kill Claudio for causing Hero's death because she's back alive again, or really never died in the first place. Hooray and hey, nonny nonny, whatever that means.
I remember that back in the 1990's, Mr. Branagh was kind of working his way through making films of all the Shakespeare plays, I know he got to "Hamlet", "Othello" and "Henry V" but I don't think he got around to ALL of them, that would be quite impossible. But he made a few with Ms. Thompson while they were together. Emma Thompson's mum also had a role here, it was kind of a family thing, I guess. Maybe when the couple split up or Branagh realized how many plays Shakespeare wrote, his attention turned to making different kinds of films. I guess after "Macbeth" in 2013 he needed a new muse and turned his talents toward filming Agatha Christie novels instead. Well, it's all good work if you can get it.
Directed by Kenneth Branagh (director of "A Haunting in Venice" and "Belfast")
Also starring Kenneth Branagh (last seen in "Stan Lee"), Robert Sean Leonard (last seen in "The Age of Innocence"), Kate Beckinsale (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Denzel Washington (last seen in "Luther: Never Too Much"), Keanu Reeves (last seen in "A Scanner Darkly"), Richard Briers (last seen in "The V.I.P.s"), Michael Keaton (last seen in "Game 6"), Gerard Horan (last seen in "Belfast"), Imelda Staunton (last heard in "Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget"), Brian Blessed (last seen in "Alexander"), Ben Elton, Jimmy Yuill (last seen in "Artemis Fowl"), Richard Clifford (last seen in "Carrington"), Phyllida Law (last heard in "Nanny McPhee"), Patrick Doyle (last seen in "Effie Gray"), Andy Hockley, Chris Barnes, Conrad Nelson, Alex Lowe (last seen in "Tulip Fever"), Alex Scott, Edward Jewesbury (last seen in "Dungeons & Dragons").
RATING: 7 out of 10 white dressing gowns (this is apparently what all the women wore while they were trying to decide what to wear, but then everybody gave up and just wore that same gown, all the time)
No comments:
Post a Comment