Much Ado About Nothing (2011, Josie Rourke and Robert Delamere)

The best thing about Much Ado About Nothing, except the dialogue, is Delamere’s direction. Not the stage direction, Rourke did that job, but Delamere’s direction of this recording. There’s some ho-hum headroom stuff going on to keep actors in the shot, but it’s a phenomenal showcase of the actors’ performances. They don’t credit the editor, which is a shame. Thanks to Delamere, watching Much Ado really does feel like seeing a play. It’s very cool.

Rourke stages the play as… an eighties sitcom. The location is Gibraltar, the prince and his men are British navy, with the rich people apparently Brits, the workers are—primarily—Spanish. There’s no colonizing awareness, which is disappointing, but it’s just another item for the disappointments list. The setting does involve constant boozing from the entire cast, which proves interesting—if everyone’s making these decisions while wholly bombed, it changes things a bit. Or could. Much Ado’s setting—besides providing amusing costume choices, a gimmick for Dogberry (John Ramm), and some soundtrack selections—never actually matters.

It’s fine. It’s a good play—with some terrible toxic patriarchal bullshit—and the acting’s good, but as it progresses, the setting makes some of the play worse. Having Claudio (Tom Bateman) and the Prince (Adam James) be in naval uniforms while being viciously cruel to civilians is a look. Though nowhere near much of one as having their showdown with ostensibly grieving parents Jonathan Coy and Anna Farnworth, which Rourke stages in the church where Bateman has just denounced and assaulted fiancée Hero (Sarah MacRae). One of Much Ado’s caveats is the relationship between Claudio and Hero is patriarchal garbage. And Rourke finds a way to make it worse.

Of course, the point of Much Ado isn’t MacRae and Bateman, it’s David Tennant and Catherine Tate as the leads. As much as Benedick and Beatrice are the leads in a full-length production. There are long stretches without any Tennant or Tate. And then the third act when they’re background for most of the drama. Their first love scene, which is very amusing as far as a sitcom take, ends up dramatically inert. It’s also a letdown—staging-wise—after Rourke’s big slapstick and screwball swings in the second act, which both Tate and Tennant excellently realize. Though Tennant much more. She has to do real stunt work. Tennant has to bump into things.

Neither Tate nor Tennant get through the third act particularly well. Tennant tries hard for a good falling out with Bateman and James, but it barely plays. Partially because Bateman’s third act histrionics are so wanting, but also because Tennant just can’t crack it. Tate just doesn’t have the material. Natalie Thomas—as Margaret—makes much more of an impression. To the point I assumed she and James would make eyes at one another as the Prince ends up very much the protagonist of the last few minutes, his honor restored; Much Ado doesn’t have very high bars for officers or gentlemen.

Clive Hayward does best in the third act, the friar now a Navy chaplain, and Coy’s okay again once he gets all his patriarchal ranting done and realizes he should maybe believe daughter MacRae over some random dudes just because they’re rich. And Thomas—she’s good, she just takes time away from Tate, who’s the initial big draw until Tennant gets to show off.

So for the first two acts, everyone’s first-rate. Not Bateman. He’s acceptable but never out of his depth (though again, Claudio’s problem isn’t the performer, it’s the play, with Rourke aggravating it). Tennant’s great, Tate’s great. James is great. MacRae has some good scenes. Elliot Levey is a wonderfully smarmy Don John.

Oh, and Ramm. Ramm plays Dogberry as a paramilitary goon who idolizes Rambo: First Blood Part II. It’s an appropriate enough take—I mean, such a good idea Caddyshack II did literally the same thing with Dan Ackroyd—but it doesn’t go anywhere. And Ramm’s on one of Much Ado’s other inglorious lists… the actors who use feyness as a homophobic punchline.

Tennant leans on it as well. With Ramm, it’s to encourage the audience to laugh at him; with Tennant, it’s to encourage the audience to laugh with him. Because Rourke’s Benedick is a shitty cishet white man comedian. I think some of the other actors fall into it as well, but I didn’t mark them. Tennant does Shakespeare well, and having him screw it up is disappointing.

Though it’s Rourke’s fault first and foremost.

It’s a good staging of the play with some excellent performances, and Delamere does a magnificent job directing the recording. It’s also a lot more rotten than it needs to be. Much Ado About Nothing, the play, has enough problems you don’t need to add colonizing and homophobia to it.

The alcohol abuse works, though.

Much Ado About Nothing (1993, Kenneth Branagh)

Much Ado About Nothing has a machismo problem. It’s not writer, director, and star Branagh’s fault; it’s just the historical patriarchy. Though Branagh does try to do some initial counterbalancing, opening the film with a quote about the sexual dynamics. Still, that moment only carries through the first scene, setting up Emma Thompson’s character… And to the degree it’s Shakespeare’s fault, well, again, what can you expect from the sixteenth century. But everything until the end of the second act, when the machismo boils over—and then whenever Branagh and Thompson are on screen together and then whenever Branagh gets to show off his directorial chops—everything else about Ado is pretty much golden.

The story’s set in gorgeous Tuscany, with Branagh and cinematographer Roger Lanser somewhat muting the brightness, but only so Patrick Doyle’s music can emphasize the light when they find it. Branagh and Lanser have this striking repeated technique of bringing the actor monologuing into direct sunlight by the end of a monologue. The actor walks around to find that lighting; otherwise, their face is, if not in shadow, at least in overcast. Doyle’s also going to score based on the pace of conversation or content, which is phenomenal stuff to watch and hear. Much Ado constantly impresses. And not just when Branagh manages to make Keanu Reeves into a reasonable enough villain.

Reeves is a jealous prince, out to ruin half-brother Denzel Washington’s day. Not his life—there’s no overthrowing Washington’s command of the nobles—just messing around with him to make him miserable. Reeves and Washington not having an onscreen relationship should be a sign the characterizations will have problems. Still, given Branagh’s able to give Reeves at least one good scene (though having him shirtless and dousing him in oil qualifies as sleight of hand) and Ado being so much endless fun, you don’t think about it.

The plot involves Washington, his nobles, and Reeves arriving at a friendly town. Richard Briers is the governor, a sweet old guy with a marriage-ready daughter, Kate Beckinsale, and a sharp-tongued, great-hearted cousin in Thompson. Brian Blessed’s his brother and sidekick, though mostly only in the third act. Robert Sean Leonard, sidekick to Washington, has the hots for Beckinsale, but he’s shy, and so Washington’s going to court on his behalf. Actually, Washington’s going to broker a marriage. While Much Ado is great and all, it is just a situation comedy involving Washington messing with his friends to amuse his other friends. Specifically Branagh and Thompson.

While Leonard and Beckinsale’s romance is first act stuff, with Reeves and his cronies failing to make Leonard believe Washington’s courting Beckinsale on his own behalf, so they have to work a secondary plot throughout. The second act focuses on Washington’s attempts to bring banter rivals, Branagh and Thompson, together. Just to prove he can, which ought to be another warning for Washington’s character, but it’s so much fun, and Washington’s infinitely charming, no red flags.

Reeves’s eventually successful plot will force Branagh into Thompson’s against the bros, and the second act is often glorious comedy with Branagh and Thompson monologuing and mooning. Thompson’s the film’s best lead performance, able to bring fire to the third act no one else can muster. Branagh’s excellent as well, but he’s not as good as Washington at Washington’s best. Washington’s part is on literal mute for the third act, while Branagh gets a character arc. The supporting cast is good or better, but almost entirely with third-act problems. Briers is excellent, but he’s got a not-great guy arc in the third act. Beckinsale’s good, but she disappears just as she becomes the natural protagonist in the plot. Leonard’s good (with a bunch of caveats and asterisks) since it was Branagh’s job to figure out how not to make Leonard come off like a dick, and Branagh punts on it. And then Reeves is not unsuccessful. Reeves’s chief goon, Gerard Horan, will end up more important than Reeves and Horan’s solid.

The best performance in the film, of course, is Michael Keaton. He’s the local constable. However Keaton and Branagh came up with the characterization—where Keaton mixes sight gags, affected delivery, and physical presence unseen since a Marx Brother—is Ado’s finest achievement. Keaton’s singular. And he never steals scenes, always leaving space, particularly for Ben Elton as his sidekick. Elton’s hilarious too. Branagh’s balance between Keaton’s subplot’s belly laughs and then the gentle romantic comedy is exceptional. Much Ado About Nothing is expert work.

Shame the resolve is all about every guy taking the agency away from one woman or another as women are, after all, just property. Except for Thompson. Sort of. In those plot constraints, when Washington becomes a de facto conquerer (at least from his own perspective), Leonard is just an obnoxious, brutish dickhead… I mean, it’s Shakespeare. Branagh’s not going to change it. And he does try to leverage Thompson against it, which is almost successful. She can’t overcome the failure of two significant, third-act events, stray threads Branagh didn’t even need but for adaptation’s sake.

Slight bummers. But an expertly produced motion picture, with some superlative performances and masterful filmmaking.