A teacher I had once told me that every performance of Shakespeare, whether it’s put on by a middle school drama club or a community theater, has a spark of genius in it. I’ve seen this production probably more than any other Shakespeare play, have some glimmering memory of Kenneth Branaugh and Emma Thompson film and the Joss Whedon black and white vanity project from last decade. The Shakespeare Sisters’ production is delightfully weird at times, their Beatrice and Hero (Emma Beth Jones and Jody Larcombe, I think) have some exquisite gremlin energy and absurdist slapstick, and this modest update retains some peculiar, culturally-specific trappings of footballer culture that one cannot imagine lasting through the artistic scrubbing of a production with broader mass market appeal.
Some things that bother: the college footballer update to the setting has limits to proper translation. Things like the Night Watch don’t make a whole lot of sense when the watch is a bunch of young men who aren’t actually security guards, so a lot of their comedy is eschewed. Hero’s faux death at the altar is replaced with a suicide scene, strangely? And it’s elongated into a search and rescue, which makes it a lot more serious? Also, the fact that she actually dies or tries to kill herself maybe for Claudio is kind of fucked and makes Claudio look like a lowkey ass in this adaption.
The selfies of Benedick and Beatrice are weirdly not taken by either of them in the photo? So they’re kind of creepily intimate with a clear third wheel photographer. The flashbacks in general are cringe.
The cinematography is intentionally oversaturated, giving the film this very distinctive candy brightness that doesn’t always look great. The first kiss scene with the overhead fluorescent lighting in the bathroom is distractingly bad. Some of the scenes in the villa are zoomed/cropped so closely that it’s hard to see the set and doesn’t give the impression that the filming location they used was visually interesting. The topography of the mansion in the film is so chaotic. This random house had a TARDIS feel to it, ever expanding to accommodate the team of footballers who have come to visit from their… practice weekend? Why are they there again? Their bus broke down on their way to visit, or…? So it’s a mansion with an indoor pool and a chapel, because, why the fuck not? Also everyone has a room. Their own room. And their are balconies. Feels like someone’s trying to hide the fact that they’re splicing together a bunch of different locations.
The whiteboard scene that substitutes the friar’s ploy monologue is a missed opportunity for him to use the visual imagery of football as a metaphor for some of his plans. He should’ve been scrawling a line up of players and pointing them across the field to the goals, but instead, he mostly just writes all over the board and scribbles poorly, which is supposed to be the joke itself.
Some genius moments: The strategically comic use of the swimming pool is chef’s kiss. Don Pedro’s implied ulterior motives are really well visualized in the masquerade scene. The masquerade itself is such a cool update to the scene. They find a way to make it cute, sexy, silly, and trashy all in one. Also, the soundtrack for this movie is a fire indie playlist.
I would totally watch another adaptation by the Shakespeare Sisters and if I can put in a plug for Taming of the Shrew next, fingers crossed!
