Much Ado About Nothing (1993) - film review

In Sicily, the nobleman Don Pedro receives a hero’s welcome from Leonardo, the Governor of Messina, having thwarted an uprising led by Don John, his bastard half-brother.  Don Pedro’s closest ally Claudio reveals his love for Leonardo’s youngest daughter Hero and a marriage is swiftly arranged.  Meanwhile, Don Pedro’s other companion in arms, Benedick, resumes his battle of words and wit with Leonardo’s niece, Beatrice.  Don Pedro and Claudio suspect that Benedick and Beatrice are secretly in love and trick them into revealing their feelings for one another.  Intent on revenge, Don John plays a trick of a more cruel kind, and dupes Claudio into thinking that Hero has been unfaithful to him.  On the wedding day, Claudio rejects his bride-to-be, and Hero is heart-broken.  Outraged by this turn of events, Beatrice asks Benedick to prove his love for her by slaying the deceived Claudio...

Kenneth Branagh’s second Shakespeare adaptation for the big screen - after his acclaimed Henry V (1989) - is a wonderfully sunny affair that boasts an exceptional cast of British and American actors, a succulent Tuscan setting and an almost religious adherence to the Bard’s original text.  The film was a colossal hit, the most successful British film of the year and a major box office triumph in the United States, recouping its 11 million dollars budget three times over.   The most ebullient and consistently enjoyable of Branagh’s Shakespeare films, Much Ado About Nothing disproves the myth that Shakespeare is no longer accessible or relevant for a modern audience.   Branagh’s inspired direction and the almost flawless performances not only make Shakespeare’s text easy to understand and engage with, but also bring out the subtle nuances of the play which tend to get glossed over in modern productions.  

Not surprisingly, the stars of the show are Kenneth Branagh and his then-wife Emma Thompson.  They make a superlative Benedick and Beatrice, at their best in their verbal catfights.  Whilst these two are tireless funny, some of the other comic exchanges feel painfully forced.  The contributions of Michael Keaton and Ben Elton are distinctly unfunny and soon become tedious, the one flaw in an otherwise impeccable production.  By contrast, Richard Briers, a renowned comic actor, brings considerable charm and poignancy to his portrayal of Leonardo, providing the play with its compassionate core.   The mix of British and American accents grates at first but becomes hardly noticeable by the end of the first act, and how could we not warm to Denzel Washington’s good-natured Don Pedro and Robert Sean Leonard’s absurdly over-earnest Claudio?   Keanu Reeves makes a terrific Iago-like villain and Brian Blessed is allowed to put his lungs to good use, demolishing most of the set as he does so.  With such juicy performances and Branagh’s commitment to stay as faithful to the original text as possible make this one of the most amiable film adaptations of a Shakespearean play.  Whilst the purists will doubtless gibe at is populist tone, Much Ado About Nothing is a very creditable attempt to bring Shakespeare to the masses and proves that the Bard of Avon is as relevant today as he was in the Elizabethan age.

© Alex Sullivan 2011

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