Honestly really, really wanted to like it. Shakespeare is one of the all-time great and most important playwrights and even in his lesser plays (such as 'As You Like It') his mastery of language and emotions and complex characterisations shone. Am a big admirer of Laurence Olivier, 'Rebecca', 'Brideshead Revisited' and all his succeeding Shakespeare roles. Am not the biggest of fans of this particular play, love the characters and text but the story is far from great.
Which is accentuated in this early film adaptation. It is primarily to be seen for seeing an early Shakespeare film and to see early career Olivier in his first Shakespeare role, also to be seen if you want to see every Shakespeare film posible and all available versions of 'As You Like It'. Sadly, beyond being a curio this is to me and quite a number of others seemingly is not a good film and another adaptation to show that 'As You Like It' is very hard to do well. Have yet to see a great version, the best available to me is the 1978 BBC Television Shakespeare adaptation and that had major shortcomings as well.
This adaptation of 'As You Like It' does have good things. There are a few good performances, Sophie Stewart is very endearing and sincere and Leon Quartermaine is suitably pompous as Jacques, his speech is one of 'As You Like It's' best moments which Quartermaine delivers more than believably (lives it actually). Felix Aylmer was always reliable and gives another strong performance. Olivier definitely went on to much better things and was more comfortable in his other Shakespearean roles, but already he showed a lot of understanding of Shakespeare's language, is in command of it and delivers his lines beautifully, didn't detect any awkwardness here.
A couple of other good things as well. The sets are both rustic and lavish enough and there is some nice whimsy here and there.
On the other hand, there are a lot of drawbacks. Starting with the near-universally, and unsurprisingly so in my view, panned performance of Elisabeth Bergner, Rosalind is a taxing and complex role and Bergner was clearly taxed. She doesn't look comfortable and a lot of her line delivery is unintentionally hilarious and not always comprehensible. Mackenzie Ward for my tastes was also very bland as Touchstone. Shakespeare's text itself is wonderful, but the delivery here varies. Great with Stewart, Olivier and Quartermaine but disastrous with Bergner. While there is some nice whimsy, 'As You Like It' is very comedic, here there actually is not enough emphasis on it and it's downplayed.
Direction tends to be too stagy, even for the time, and lacks distinction, the action also feels static. The storytelling is poorly done, the thinness of the play's story itself is very obvious through the pedestrian at best and often creaky pacing and the film does nothing to improve upon the problems of the play's ending, it's still incredibly absurd and comes out of nowhere. Other than the sets, 'As You Like It' doesn't look particularly good, the photography is too static and over simple and the costumes are as unflattering and unintentionally bizarre as they come.
Concluding, didn't like this very much sad to say. 4/10
Which is accentuated in this early film adaptation. It is primarily to be seen for seeing an early Shakespeare film and to see early career Olivier in his first Shakespeare role, also to be seen if you want to see every Shakespeare film posible and all available versions of 'As You Like It'. Sadly, beyond being a curio this is to me and quite a number of others seemingly is not a good film and another adaptation to show that 'As You Like It' is very hard to do well. Have yet to see a great version, the best available to me is the 1978 BBC Television Shakespeare adaptation and that had major shortcomings as well.
This adaptation of 'As You Like It' does have good things. There are a few good performances, Sophie Stewart is very endearing and sincere and Leon Quartermaine is suitably pompous as Jacques, his speech is one of 'As You Like It's' best moments which Quartermaine delivers more than believably (lives it actually). Felix Aylmer was always reliable and gives another strong performance. Olivier definitely went on to much better things and was more comfortable in his other Shakespearean roles, but already he showed a lot of understanding of Shakespeare's language, is in command of it and delivers his lines beautifully, didn't detect any awkwardness here.
A couple of other good things as well. The sets are both rustic and lavish enough and there is some nice whimsy here and there.
On the other hand, there are a lot of drawbacks. Starting with the near-universally, and unsurprisingly so in my view, panned performance of Elisabeth Bergner, Rosalind is a taxing and complex role and Bergner was clearly taxed. She doesn't look comfortable and a lot of her line delivery is unintentionally hilarious and not always comprehensible. Mackenzie Ward for my tastes was also very bland as Touchstone. Shakespeare's text itself is wonderful, but the delivery here varies. Great with Stewart, Olivier and Quartermaine but disastrous with Bergner. While there is some nice whimsy, 'As You Like It' is very comedic, here there actually is not enough emphasis on it and it's downplayed.
Direction tends to be too stagy, even for the time, and lacks distinction, the action also feels static. The storytelling is poorly done, the thinness of the play's story itself is very obvious through the pedestrian at best and often creaky pacing and the film does nothing to improve upon the problems of the play's ending, it's still incredibly absurd and comes out of nowhere. Other than the sets, 'As You Like It' doesn't look particularly good, the photography is too static and over simple and the costumes are as unflattering and unintentionally bizarre as they come.
Concluding, didn't like this very much sad to say. 4/10