Much Ado review – Shakespeare adaptation offers modern British take – The Guardian
This well-intentioned adaptation of the Shakespeare romcom relocates the story from Messina to modern-day, faintly drizzly Britain. Beatrice (Emma Beth Jones) and her cousin Hero (Jody Larcombe) are imagined as college college students having fun with a languid afternoon collectively, till their idyll is shattered by a busload of high-spirited rugby gamers. Amongst them is Benedick (Johnny Lucas) – a commitment-phobic hunk who’s horrified by the thought of marriage, however has been locked for a while in a “merry struggle” of phrases with Beatrice – and Claudio, his wetter, kinder pal, who has a crush on Hero that’s fated solely to develop, bland although she could also be. The 4 characters’ inevitable flightpath to bliss is imperilled, nonetheless, by the machinations of Don John (properly performed by Jack Boal), a basic Shakespearean chaos agent who can’t bear to see others glad.
Directed and produced by the promisingly named sisters Hillary and Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare, this palpably low-budget effort brings lots of the issues you would possibly count on: dodgy lighting, dispiriting costumes and a washed-out palette. However there are different points that may’t fairly be attributed to cash: for all of the repartee between Beatrice and Benedick, the 2 actors have little chemistry, dampening the squib once they get collectively. Worse, some strains are rushed or mumbled, making the (already difficult) language exhausting to grasp, whereas plangent indie music shoulders in at moments of excessive drama to do the emotional heavy-lifting. And the graceful progress of the story is marred by a number of cringe-inducing moments, together with a scholar celebration the place the actors feign drunken flirting.
Nonetheless, the supply textual content has been sensitively pruned, and there are some good performances. Jones is a glowing and likable Beatrice; and Peter Saracen, enjoying Leonato, handles the character’s volte-face from humdrum dad to fervent slut-shamer with credibility. My hunch, although, is that the movie will show most helpful to English lecturers wishing to place their toes up slightly than train the play.
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