Verlorene Liebesmüh'

So it is, right at the first frame next to the title, "a romantic musical comedy" is the tagline -- up front with no misconception whatsoever for everyone to see. The entrance is grand in Patrick Doyle's scoring style, along with the credit treatment on red satin and all. What an invitation! 'Like it already. Shakespeare would approve and applaud.

It's truly "there's no business like show business like no business I know." Here Shakespeare and his comedy of errors, a-mixing and a-matching love signals at play again. This common "love bug" (literally so) theme is ever present: in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", in "Much Ado About Nothing", it's all love wires a-blindly and mistaken assumptions a-crisscrossing. 'Tis all seeds of "Love's Labour's Lost."

The outstanding ensemble cast, the charming pairings of the lovers, the song and dance numbers (including a sizzling "Let's face the music and dance"), the costumes and sets, Branagh's script and the "Cinetone News" segments, his impeccable direction, and Patrick Doyle, a vital collaborator who provided the attractive score -- collectively made this romantic musical comedy most entertaining.

Branagh's passion in showing off Shakespeare in film media for all to enjoy is beyond evident. It all seem so facile, yet obviously there's plenty of love in nourishing this dream, lots of labour unrelenting from all involved in this production, and the lost would be Branagh's total steadfast lost in realizing this project -- love, labour, 'lost' shiningly shows. He's out done himself!

If you like musicals, romantic comedies, light-hearted Shakespeare -- go for it. The only special effect here is Branagh's magic.

Interesting reading the reviews herein. The reviewers either loved or hated it. Some witty shots taken at Branagh's effort to make one of The Bard's weakest comedies into something enjoyable. I mean, c'mon. The play is a story of young men swearing off of love and being made to eat their vows by clever women through little games and switched clues. Hardly a deep plot with potentially tragic twists like Much Ado About Nothing, or confusion reigning during a lover in love with love as in Twelfth Night, or a knee slapper like Midsummer's Night Dream. So, Branagh, ever the innovator and risk-taker, makes it into a gishy late 30s musical with all the trappings (make that 'tappings') from lead into song and dance routines to coordinated smiling shapely swimmers peeling off like a deck of cards into a swimming pool. Busby Berkeley would have loved it, as would those guys like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Vincent Youmans who wrote those songs back in the 30s. OK, so the ending sucks but how else can you wind up this comedy? It's not Branagh's fault this play is Much Ado About Nothing; blame it on the Bard. He wrote it.

"Dancing With Shakespeare" is the direct translation of the title this film was given in Norway, and it is quite an apt description not only of the film's content, but the fundamental, gnawing weakness of the film: a play that above all plays with language seems ill at ease in a jacket marked "dancing". When you dance with Shakespeare you don't want to get out of step, and Love's Labour's Lost doesn't QUITE come together. And it's very sad because it's a film you so much WANT to work, because its heart is in the right place, and its intentions are good and creative and exciting and bold. Yes, it's enjoyable and frothy, silly and sincere in equal measures, beautifully shot with a camera that plays a part in the best Hollywood-golden-age manner, and sometimes it's very funny and works beautifully. But frequently the novelty of turning one of Shakespeare's most language-reliant comedies into a nostalgic romantic musical simply works against itself, and the result is then flat rather than uplifting. And this is not because people don't TRY –everyone involved in the film really gives it a good go, and clearly wants to try to make it come off. It very nearly does, but not quite –there is an unevenness about it that keeps us from getting fully engrossed in what we see, and this is the sort of film that needs that to work.

I was lucky enough to see this film originally at a special screening introduced by Kenneth Branagh and Alicia Silverstone, which boosted the preview audience into a higher gear of excitement and expectation than would be usual, so the experience was a little like the prospect of drinking lots of champagne –delightful, but somehow never as good as the idea of it!

Upon re-watching the film recently, I think the film in fact rather MORE resembles one of those very fancy, colourful cocktails you order when on holiday, with tiny umbrellas and exotic fruit and flowers sticking out and looking enormously tempting on the menu and when brought to you, but always somewhat impractical to drink and with ingredients that don't quite mix together satisfyingly enough. With Love's Labour's Lost the conceit of transforming Shakespeare's rich ideas into classic Hollywood musical numbers to bring across certain moods and emotional moments is a fun recipe, but it seems to me to clash too often with the actual text the film is based on. Now, admittedly much of Shakespeare's play is very obscure and difficult to understand compared to other plays he wrote, and severe editing was going to be inevitable; but putting in musical number after musical number as a replacement seems more a way of padding the film to arrive at a decent length rather than really moving the story along. In fact, many of the musical numbers –skillfully and cheekily staged though some of them are– just get in the way of things, and frequently I found myself wishing that Branagh had been even more faithful to Shakespeare and instead kept in more of the actual play itself. Thus I was pleasantly surprised to find a number of deleted scenes on the DVD of the film that sadly never made it to the final cut. I think these should have been kept in because they help make more sense of the story.

The diversity of performers that comprise the cast is quite interesting and there are some magnificent individual performances, though again the range of different styles doesn't always gel on screen. To a certain extent this was also true of Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. Everyone is doing their own little film, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Timothy Spall's Don Armado is perhaps one of the most outrageous performances ever seen on screen, but it is totally in keeping with the character as written. And both he and Nathan Lane (as Costard the clown) bring an essential element of sadness to their otherwise comic roles that is very moving. But the double quartet of lovers that form the central romantic story of the film is a very mixed bag indeed. Branagh understandably gives the plum role of Berowne to himself and sells his Shakespeare with that admirable deftness that is uniquely his, but he is really too old for the part and this works against him here. I also feel at times he should have directed himself more astutely or had better assistance at doing so, for it is largely the scenes in which he does not appear that work best –simply because at such times he, as director, is able to concentrate fully on the other performances. The film also seems unable to break itself totally free from its staginess to become the truly filmic musical it aspires to be.

So, I am quite ambivalent about this film. I DO like and enjoy it, and applaud Branagh for tackling a lesser-known Shakespeare comedy, and with such gusto, but I SO wish I were able to like it more and be fully satisfied by it –and by the greater film that is in its heart..

Something about Love's Labour's Lost is causing critics to sniff and huff and puff like never before. The dance numbers aren't perfectly in sync and the music isn't perfectly performed, they sneer. Shakespeare and Gershwin don't mix. It's sheer fluff. It's bizarre.

Thus saith the critics. The forest that they're missing with their shrubs of discontentment is the overwhelming charm and infectuous fun of this silly little film. Yes, when Branagh and his cronies do a dance number it isn't lock-step choreography (one arm a little high, perhaps, one foot off the beat a bit). When Alicia Silverstone and her ladies-in-waiting cavort and giggle in a pool, they're not quite Esther Williams and company. Instead of picture-perfect Fred & Ginger, they look like real people dancing and singing because dancing and singing are fun. And unless you're Ebenezer Scrooge, The Grinch, or a movie critic, you'll have fun, too.

That's not to say the movie is just sloppy silliness. Branagh stages some gorgeous set pieces, including gondolas lit by Japanese lanterns, a prop-plane goodbye straight out of Casablanca, and a production number in which the film's silliest character kicks the moon like a big silver soccer ball. It's about a third Shakespeare, a third 30's musical, and a third Looney Tunes. What's odd is that the styles mix so well under Branagh's direction.

If you want a picture-perfect musical, rent "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" or some other dull thing. If you want perfect Shakespeare, rent Branagh's "Hamlet." If, however, you want a movie to make you believe in movies again -- if you want to kick up your heels, laugh out loud, and float out of a movie theater humming Cole Porter -- see this movie.

I don't know why people seem to dislike this movie so. I enjoyed it, and I'm not ashamed to say it. It's a fun movie. It is definitely not perfect, of course not, but what film is? And of course even with masterpieces there will always be the sourpuss or sniper who just can't sit back and enjoy it. It all comes down to a matter of taste, and in my opinion there is no good taste or bad taste, there is simply what you like and what you don't like. And I liked this movie.

I saw this movie without seeing any kind of trailers, hearing any kind of previews, reading any kind of opinions or reviews. In fact I had little knowledge of the play itself--I do enjoy Shakespeare, but I don't have enough time to sit around reading it a lot (and a Shakespeare play takes considerable time to read). And, as stated by other people, this is one of his lesser-known plays (one of the reasons Branagh chose it, I heard). So I came into it without any kind of bias. And I liked it.

I thought it worked. I thought the set design, the newsreels, the musical aspect, and the colors worked. In my opinion, it fit. I especially enjoyed the musical aspect because musicals nowadays are an endangered species.

And as for the fact that they use Shakespearean language I have this to say: I can't understand everything they say, but I do understand quite a lot of it, and the visual aspect aids in understanding so that anyone who watches it will get the idea of what is going on enough to enjoy the film. Unless they aren't paying attention; in that case they won't get it, but all movies work like that.

And on the subject of Alicia Silverstone: okay, she's not stellar, but she wasn't bad, either. And the other actors were enjoyable as well. Nathan Lane, of course, was very humorous, as with the rest of the supporting cast. It was not badly acted at all.

So, to put it briefly, you will like this movie if you do not overanalyze it. If you sit back with an open mind and just watch it, you will not hate it, I promise. It was not meant to be dissected like a frog. It was meant to be enjoyed, like--oh, I don't know, a movie? So enjoy it.