Until seeing this recent Branagh adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like It, I thought that I and my 8th-grade classmates years ago at a private girls' school had butchered this play as badly as possible. However, apparently, I was wrong. There is a lot that is seriously wrong with this film, despite some strong individual contributions from David Oyelowo, Adrien Lester, Richard Briers, and a couple others. However, overall, not only does this film border on incomprehensibility, but it also discourages one from ever wishing to read or see this play again.
The worst aspect of this film by far is the patronizing, stereotypical "orientalisms" of the setting in Japan. Not for one moment is the story at all credible within this environment. Branagh does not seem to have spent any time at all understanding the time period into which he sets the play. What are English dukes doing setting up their fiefdoms in late 19th century Japan, let alone having private armies of ancient Japanese costume-clad soldiers? Every cliché that the least educated Westerner has about Japan is thrown into this shoddy blender.
Why has Branagh set this story in Japan? I optimistically thought, at the outset, perhaps he's reverse-engineering the concept Kurosawa so brilliantly and successfully used in Ran, and Throne of Blood. And a truly imaginative and profound director could have made a good case for doing this. But Branagh does not attempt to place us in a setting which makes sense, so there is no explanation for why we are in Japan, other than that Branagh is desperate to call attention to himself, or that he wants an excuse to dress up all the lovers in kimonos at the end.
The character of Touchstone looks clearly ridiculous, as if he had been air-lifted into the forest from some other planet. The character of Rosalind is seriously miscast, and appears to be less of a personage than Celia, also probably miscast in the overacting Romola Garai. In the play, Rosalind dazzles us with a driving intelligence wholly lacking here. And what are we to make of the casting choices of Oliver and Orlando? Although both parts are finely acted, in fact their contributions were the best parts of this film in my opinion, to imagine two black British lovers courting 19th century white women in the Japanese countryside, while everyone else there seems to be white, just seems totally anachronistic and jarring. Had the cast been totally mixed, it would have seemed less out of place, or had the setting not been filled with quaint Japanisms, it could have worked. Obviously, nothing needs to make sense in Branagh's brain. I'm not sure I would have been surprised had a couple of the characters shown up dressed as 9th century Vikings, or as Russian boyars.
I also found the music annoying. Britain is full of divine singers: couldn't KB have found some better voices to do the singing? Couldn't he have found some less whiny music? And the music at the end sounds like an American musical comedy from the 1930s. Watching the red-haired Rosalind dressed up as a geisha in the ending scenes was just silly.
In short, Mr. Branagh seems to have no real appreciation or understanding for the characters and the themes of the play, and stoops to the level of the comic-book in this film. If he has so little confidence in the merits of the play as it is written, why bother making a movie of it at all?
The worst aspect of this film by far is the patronizing, stereotypical "orientalisms" of the setting in Japan. Not for one moment is the story at all credible within this environment. Branagh does not seem to have spent any time at all understanding the time period into which he sets the play. What are English dukes doing setting up their fiefdoms in late 19th century Japan, let alone having private armies of ancient Japanese costume-clad soldiers? Every cliché that the least educated Westerner has about Japan is thrown into this shoddy blender.
Why has Branagh set this story in Japan? I optimistically thought, at the outset, perhaps he's reverse-engineering the concept Kurosawa so brilliantly and successfully used in Ran, and Throne of Blood. And a truly imaginative and profound director could have made a good case for doing this. But Branagh does not attempt to place us in a setting which makes sense, so there is no explanation for why we are in Japan, other than that Branagh is desperate to call attention to himself, or that he wants an excuse to dress up all the lovers in kimonos at the end.
The character of Touchstone looks clearly ridiculous, as if he had been air-lifted into the forest from some other planet. The character of Rosalind is seriously miscast, and appears to be less of a personage than Celia, also probably miscast in the overacting Romola Garai. In the play, Rosalind dazzles us with a driving intelligence wholly lacking here. And what are we to make of the casting choices of Oliver and Orlando? Although both parts are finely acted, in fact their contributions were the best parts of this film in my opinion, to imagine two black British lovers courting 19th century white women in the Japanese countryside, while everyone else there seems to be white, just seems totally anachronistic and jarring. Had the cast been totally mixed, it would have seemed less out of place, or had the setting not been filled with quaint Japanisms, it could have worked. Obviously, nothing needs to make sense in Branagh's brain. I'm not sure I would have been surprised had a couple of the characters shown up dressed as 9th century Vikings, or as Russian boyars.
I also found the music annoying. Britain is full of divine singers: couldn't KB have found some better voices to do the singing? Couldn't he have found some less whiny music? And the music at the end sounds like an American musical comedy from the 1930s. Watching the red-haired Rosalind dressed up as a geisha in the ending scenes was just silly.
In short, Mr. Branagh seems to have no real appreciation or understanding for the characters and the themes of the play, and stoops to the level of the comic-book in this film. If he has so little confidence in the merits of the play as it is written, why bother making a movie of it at all?