As You Like It (2006)

By any standard, Kenneth Branagh’s 2006 production of As You Like It is exceptional.  It is both an incredibly entertaining film and – in my mind - a terrifically faithful adaptation of Shakespeare’s original play.  In the DVD extra “From Page to Screen With Kenneth Branagh,” the director explains that, as a filmmaker adapting Shakespeare, “you’re trying to serve the story in the medium you’re working in” (emphasis added).  The point being that if you just stick to the text, then you don’t have a visually stunning movie; but throw the text out the window in order to make a Star Wars prequel-esque, special effects-heavy, cinematic explosion, then you’ve lost Shakespeare’s genius in the translation.   Brannagh makes neither mistake here.

In As You Like It, Branagh makes the bold decision to change the play’s setting from a French dukedom (of an uncertain time period) to the feudal Japan of the 19^th century.  In fact, as the film opened, I felt like the play was happening in the cover art of Weezer’s classic 1996 album Pinkerton.  

You should own this album.

As a huge fan, I was that much more excited about the movie.  The setting change was a make it or break it move for Branagh’s production, one which proves itself over the course of the film to be a brilliant decision. Shakespeare’s play begins with the hostile takeover by Duke Frederick already completed, but the cool new setting allows Brangh to stage it at the film’s outset as a ferocious samurai invasion.  Pairing that awesome open with seamless translation of Shakespeare’s “wrestling” in Act One to the sumo wrestling in the film, and you not only have a dynamite new setting, but also the brilliant juxtaposition of the dukedom’s violence and the peace we find in the Forest of Arden.

As You LIke It: Dude Looks Like a Lady, Sorts Everybody Out

Rosalind by R.W. Macbeth (1887) - with a name like that, you just have to draw something from Shakespeare!

I liked my other subtitle idea better: “As You Like It: Four Weddings, No Funeral” – but it didn’t really leave me with a whole lot to say.

The conflicts in As You Like It, in one sense, center around two feuding sets of brothers. Duke Frederick has usurped the Dukedom of his older (and aptly named) brother Duke Senior, while elder brother Oliver has neglected (and quickly steps up his villain-game by trying to murder) his own younger and better-liked brother Orlando.

But these feuds really only bookend the play’s action. The real focus of the play is on the various roadblocks and pitfalls facing certain young would-be-lovers. There are four different couples to marry off by the end of the play, and a lot needs sorting in order for that to happen. There is only one man for the job – and it’s a woman. Ok, it’s a woman dressed like a man. Ok, you got me: if you want to get really technical it’s a man playing a woman playing a man.