philosoraptor42

Much Ado About Nothing (2012)

"Much Ado About Nothing" is the latest film from Joss Whedon. Like a few other films I reviewed recently, it is a modernisation of a Shakespeare play. The film essentially all takes place in a house and there's the feeling that the events are all unfolding essentially at one party. And considering the whole film was apparently filmed over 12 days while Joss Whedon was on a short contractual vacation from the "Avengers" post-production process, one might easily imagine that the party atmosphere existed off-camera too.

The film features a number of romantic couplings (or potential romantic couplings), but the central one is between the characters Benedick (played by Alexis Denisof) and Beatrice (played by Amy Acker). These two characters spend most of the movie finding exciting new ways to insult each othr (all in Shakespearean dialogue of course). They claim to hate one another, but there's so much tension between them that it always seems implied that they have some kind of past romantic history. In this adaptation any umming and ahhing about whether they have some a romantic history is entirely cleared up in the opening of the movie which shows the two of them in bed together after clearly having slept together the previous evening. I feel it was a good idea to start the film this way as it helps to make the relationship between the two characters a lot clearer and helps to give us a helpful starting point from which to begin the story.

Admittedly this is essentially a Shakespearean romantic comedy. it's all about matching various characters up with one another. So the central storyline is that the friends of these two central characters, Benedick and Beatrice, who are always at one another's throats decide that it would be a great idea to pair the two of them up.

Meanwhile, the bastard son of the king (inevitably when adapting Shakespeare it's easier to keep some aspects the same in spite of the shift in setting, so there's still a king and a prince even though it's a bunch of people at a house party) has decided to cause shame on his legitimate brother. The prince's friend Claudio hopes to be matched with a particular woman called Hero. The prince wants to help him. As such, the prince's illegitimate brother Don John, on the basis that anything that is bad for the prince is good for him, decides to do whatever he can to mess up this romantic coupling between Claudio and Hero.

Inevitably I find myself comparing this with the Kenneth Branaugh version of "Much Ado About Nothing". I haven't seen that film since I was much MUCH younger and inevitably I can probably understand the Shakespearean dialogue a lot better now. It's a testament to the quality of Kenneth Branaugh's adaptation of this play that I enjoyed it as much as I did when still very much a child.

A lot of my memories of the Kenneth Branaugh version are clouded, but there are at least two elements on which I think Whedon's version is a definite improvement. In Kenneth Branaugh's version Michael Keaton played the character of Dogberry, the local constable, and I simply got the impression that he was supposed to be mad. I seem to remember him having a weird hat and even an eyepatch. In Whedon's version this part is played by Nathan Fillion and he delivers his lines so much more clearly and gives such an expressive performance. The constable, along with the rest of the local police force, are all supposed to be bumbling idiots and I absolutely loved the way Fillion would clearly use words that were the opposite of what he actually intended to say.

All over this adaptation there are actors who I recognise from other Joss Whedon works and Fillion's underlings are no exception. On the one hand there's Tom Lenk who's most well known for his role as Andrew in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. On the other hand there's Bri and Nick from the youtube channel "BriTANick" (to rhyme with "Titanic") which has previously featured Joss Whedon as a guest. (Their most well known video on that Youtube channel is probably "Movie Title" advertising a generic trailer which ties together the elements of various generic Oscar bait movies. As good as the underlings are, Nathan Fillion as the Constable becomes a big highlight of the film.

Another part of Whedon's movie I feel was greatly improved from Branaugh's movie is the character of Don John (the bastard). Branaugh's version features Keanu Reeves in this role. Now I'm not going to blame Keanu Reeves too much here. While not having a fantastic range as an actor Keanu managed to make his emotions as a character very clear in Branaugh's adaptation. However, the quality of an adaptation is about more than how the lines are delivered or quality of performances. It is also about how the play is staged; how you place people on the set, how you move things along and how you engage the audience visually. You need to make the visual and general conceptual side of things work rather than just expecting line delivery and performance to sell the story to the audience. Keanu does not get to casually lay out his malicious plot while nonchalantly fingering his girlfriend, like Sean Maher does in Whedon's adaptation. Naturally part of the reason for that is because the character of Conrade would not be female in Branaugh's adaptation, but that's precisely the point. Whedon knows how to make all the elements clear and well expressed for a modern audience.

Seeing Sean Maher in "Firefly" as Simon Tam, a doctor and sister to the character River Tam, I had always thought he had a rather limited range himself. However, it turns out that playing a malicious and villainous character suits him far better than the goody two-shoes whiny character of Simon Tam.

The two central roles of Benedick and Beatrice are played by a couple of actors who had a romantic connection in the final season of Angel. I must admit, I was a little caught offguard by Alexis Denisof's American accent. Certainly his English accent had never quite sounded right (though it was a damn sight better than James Marston's ridiculous attempt), but hearing the sharper side of the American accent here felt odd to me.

At the start of the film I thought Denisof was a little too gruff and not cheery enough for a character who is supposed to be a bit of a joker. Then again, I remember that even in Kenneth Branaugh's version, he's always supposed to be a bit full of pride. While I didn't quite buy into his character at the beginning, when things get going his character progresses and develops very well. Both he and Amy Acker have a great on-screen chemistry which works very well.

While the film is in black and white, there's absolutely no lack of vibrancy to the film. Apparently the look of the film was achieved by mainly relying on natural sunlight for the lighting. The whole film is filmed at Joss Whedon's house and I have to say, his house looks absolutely gorgeous.

There's not a lot of backing music, but at certain points in the movie certain scenes will feature longer songs. It turns out that there are two Shakespearean poems which have been adapted into more modern sounding songs, the most memorable of which, I found, was "Sigh No More" (you can find the lyrics here)

(video link)

I don't really pay attention to lyrics much so I had no idea that I was listening to Shakespearean lyrics. I just thought it sounded like a neat little song and even wondered whether I'd heard it before.

The film as a whole is all very well produced with good music that fits in well, with a modern day setting that fits the play very well, very good filming techniques (so it doesn't feel like some friends who've just decided to pick up a camera). It doesn't feel like people having a bit of fun in their spare time. Rather, everything is so smooth that you can tell that they must have put a lot of effort in to make it so. If there was just the actors having fun together then they must be able to recite and perform Shakespeare in their sleep because it is all delivered so carefully, clearly and smoothly.

However, the one way the film does feel like a party is the amount of alcohol that is drunk. If you played a simple drinking game of "drink when the characters drink" you'd most likely die. The actors seem to be constantly drinking something in every scene. Drinking some wine, drinking a cocktail or even casually laying out a line of shot glasses and filling up each one. I found myself wondering whether these characters ever stopped drinking and apparently the answer is no. However, very rarely is anyone actually seen drunk. Seeing someone drinking alcohol is pretty much every minute of the film, but seeing someone drunk in the film is extremely rare.

Overall this is about as good as you could possibly hope from a modernised Shakespeare adaptation and it turns out that this means it is very good indeed. Joss Whedon has amassed a large group of actors who he enjoys working with, so these are all actors who are used to one another and who work fantastically well together. I must admit feeling a little embarrassed that I didn't find myself laughing until the film began to make use of some more slapsticky elements, but it must be said that once things had got going I was seriously laughing out loud at the humour and was thoroughly satisfied with the experience by the end.

A+