Love's Labours Lost (2000)

Let's Face the Music

Wild horses couldn't get most of us to watch a full-length Shakespeare play starring Alicia Silverstone, but give the girl credit for really trying! (I do like the review below in which the reviewer criticizes Silverstone for speaking her dialogue with emphasis on every single word, it's true.) So even while I take off two stars for the terrible performance she gives, I add two stars because I think she's so great. What! A paradox worthy of the great Matthew Lillard. In any case she looks enchanting and her expressions in the cafe scenes with her girlfriends, as she glances from face to face, often seeming to anticipate who will be speaking next, give the viewer the feeling of being a pinball in a mighty pinball machine of the late 16th century. She must have been studying, or Branagh must have been feeding her, videotapes of old Cybill Shepherd movies like DAISY MILLER and AT LONG LAST LOVE to get everything that disastrously wrong on a syllable level... and yet the movie would be pretty dull without her.

Kenneth Branagh, why so many long, long long shots of the musical numbers like the one in "I've Got a Crush on You?" Is it to reassure us that the actors you picked are actually doing the dancing? Maybe so, for in the one number (the sexy "Let's Face the Music and Dance," in which all the stars wear elaborate masks) that uses extremely swift cuts and closeups of miscellaneous body parts a la FLASHDANCE, I was soon convinced that the real actors were participating only occasionally, and that you had hired Ann Reinking or whoever to play their body doubles for the Fosse-like choreography. I see that you persuaded Stanley Donen (and Martin Scorcese) to sign on as "presenters," whatever that means, but in those long static shots of Geraldine McEwan cavorting for ten minutes at a stretch along a green sward, you are displaying the Donen touch for sure.

Were you too old to play a youth in Love's Labours Lost? Maybe so, but I watched the whole picture just thinking you were the uncle to the other boys. Only after I went back and read the play did I see that Berowne is supposed to be no older, just a little wiser, than his three friends. Still you're great and I'm just sorry that the failure of this movie was such a setback for your career. But you wound up luckier than your leading lady whose career this bomb pretty much decimated. She was for five minutes the greatest star in the world, then you came along with this, and the Batman and Robin movie came along making her look chunky and dumb, and then it was curtains for a unique talent in the cinema. November 27, 2008

Love, Labored and Lost

"Love's Labor's Lost" is one of the Bard's more bittersweet comedies. There's the joy of romantic love tempered with the bitter reality of war, and the original ending is open to question. As Berowne says, "This isn't a normal play. Jack does not get his Jill."

Kenneth Branagh decided to turn the Bard's bittersweet tale into a fluffy '30s musical, complete with fake newsreel footage. The Prince of Navarre (Alessandro Nivola) leads his friends to forswear women for study. However,when the Princess of France (Alicia Silverstone) stops by with her handmaidens, love and music is in the air. There are numerous campy musical sequences-- such as "Cheek to cheek" number where the young men are soaring overhead like puppets against a sky backdrop, and "Let's face the music and dance",a "sexy" number where the couples wear masks--that seems more of a tribute to Wild Orchid than William Shakespeare.

Kenneth Branagh,as Berowne,poetically speaks Shakespeare's poetry. One can say the script is strong despite the actors. Alicia Silverstone, Matthew Lillard and Nathan Lane give vapid readings. Poor Lane looks out of place as the comical Costard. It's nice to see interracial romance treated in an ordinary, everyday way--- but the cast is weak.

"Love's Labor's Lost" ends up labored and lost. With stilted choreography and a pretentious use of the Great American Songbook, it ends up a campy-- and fascinating-- failure,but not in the entertaining "Xanadu" sense. To paraphrase Shakespeare,it's all sound and funny, signifying nothing. July 8, 2008

Shakespeare ReVamped

The film wasn't quite what I expected when I purchased it, but now that I've seen it, I'm glad it wasn't. They use famous songs to make an old classic modern and innovative. Nathan Lane is hilarious as well as Timothy Spall. Once again, Kenneth Branagh works wonders as a director AND actor. It's a good date movie for drama geeks (like me). :) January 28, 2008

Unusual, but that's why I like it

This is definitely not for Shakespeare purists, but if you don't take the Bard too seriously, it's cute and fun. The blending of classic Shakespeare with Broadway song and dance routines makes for an unusual experience, which certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea. I think I'm the only person in my household who likes this movie, but that doesn't put a damper on how much I enjoy it. November 27, 2007

Branagh,Cole Porter,Irving Berlin and The Bard as if they,ve always been together!

Kenneth Branagh never ceases to amaze me or disappoint me when this great Shakesperean actor/director takes one of The Bard's plays and works his magic and whimsy and brings Shakespeare anew to the big screen.HENRY V,HAMLET,MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and now LOVE"S LABOUR'S LOST each lovingly and differently interpreted so that the general public may approach Shakespeare in a way that hitherto they may have not.I am such a person.I confess that I have not been a fan of Shakespeare as usually seen in Shakespeare Festivals,Broadway and regional theatres.For me,I have no affinity nor find it interesting;AHHHHH,but thank you Kenneth Branagh for trusting your own sensibilities to continue to reinterpret these masterfully written plays so that certain of us may find Shakespeare more to our tastes.I make no apologies for what some may consider my low-brow approach to Shakespeare via Branagh;IT WORKS FOR ME and I love every last delicious minute of it!
The story to LLL is quite simple: four chums have sworn off women and frivolity for a three year period in order to pursue knowledge and enlightenment.When four gorgeous maidens arrive from France,though, the four chums find it harder and harder to keep their vows.Branagh sets this farce in 1939 Europe just before France is invaded.He styles it with the look and extravagant grandeur of a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical with dancing and singing to the melodies of the times from Cole Porter and Irving Berlin and voila...with sharp editing,lighting and dazzling camera work,Branagh transform this Shakespeare play into a WW2 movie musical spectacle.He obviously researched the times well,for the look of Branagh's film is totally faithful to the time period including authentically recreated newsreels and swirling newspaper flashes.It is delightful from the opening scenes of the four chums taking their united vows to the semi-sweet conclusion of the end of the War.Adrian Lester is to be especially commended for his performance.I had seen him live on stage in London in the musical COMPANY and the man can sing and dance!!! The others at times seem obviously out of their elements as singers and dancers,but that is why it IS so good.This is a group of actors first and foremost who happen to be able to sing and dance;not a group of singers and dancers who can't act! BRILLIANT KENNETH.I LOVE ALL YOUR WORK.
As usual,Branagh has Patrick Doyle do his soundtrack.This pairing always works and pleases.Very highly recommended. October 12, 2007

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