As You Like It (2006)

Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Romola Garai, David Oyelowo, Adrian Lester, Kevin Kline, Alfred Molina, Brian Blessed, Janet McTeer, Richard Briers, Richard Clifford, Jotham Annan, Paul Chan, Jade Jeffries. [PG]

Kenneth Branagh’s fifth (and, as of 2023, last) cinematic Shakespeare translation is his weakest, an ungainly and muddled interpretation of the comedy, transporting the action from a French fiefdom to a colony in 19th-century Japan…and I can’t figure out why the filmmaker did so. The narrative is reasonably faithful, after all, plus, there are hardly any Asian actors in the cast, and the new setting/culture results in a few mind-boggling “updates” to the details (e.g., a challenge to a duel is done here as a sumo wrestling match, and the victor is half the size of his opponent). Indeed, the Japanese trappings emerge as prefab exotic qualities, and the messy coupling complications melt into the adaptation’s own absurdities. Most of the actors are serviceable or better, but Branagh’s perfunctory attention to their comic flamboyance and tender heartache gets distracted by color and remedial angles/compositions. If all the world’s a stage, Kenneth should’ve left this play on one. Post-Meiji Restoration Japan is “recreated” at Wakehurt Place’s botanical gardens and England’s Shepperton Film Studios. Received a theatrical release in several international markets, but audiences in the U.S. first saw it nationwide on HBO.

42/100