Twelfth Night * Film Review Shakespeare

Film review – Dagny – 19/6/97


Given the recent glut of Shakespearean productions on film, one could be forgiven for feeling a little jaded about going to see yet another one. “Oh no, not yet another exquisitely mannered costume drama starring Helena Bonham Carter’s hair!”, one might well think.

Well, pause a moment. Al Pacino has been looking for Richard, Baz Luhman was looking for a contemporary Romeo and Juliet, and Ken Branagh is probably looking for an academy award (although with the viciously cut version of Hamlet that is
being shown in New Zealand, we’ll never know if he deserves it, but that’s another story). I am happy to say that the only thing this production of Twelfth Night is looking for is the heart and soul of Shakespeare’s play, and it finds it. This is an honest and compelling film that cuts to the centre of the Shakespearean text and conveys it with warmth and humanity, and a commendable lack of hype.

The success of the film is largely due to the fine performances from the cast, particularly Imogen Stubbs, Ben Kingsley, and Helena Bonham Carter (who proves that she can do more than look fragile and ethereal). The film also features a specially adapted prologue that presents crucial plot information in an easily digestible form. When the action of the play begins on the shores of Illyria, we are fully aware of the fact that Viola and her identical twin brother (amazingly so, considering he’s a boy) are oblivious of each other’s survival. The prologue clears up some of the play’s initial confusion and establishes the essential mechanisms of the plot.

Imogen Stubbs is an energetic and likeable Viola/Cesario. Much of the play hinges on her credibility when disguised as Cesario, and on the audience’s sympathy with her. Stubbs’ Viola combines youthful enthusiasm with melancholy and introspection, and provides the perfect foil to both Orsino’s affected melancholy and romantic langour, and to Olivia’s passionate personality that is being stifled by the constraints of mourning.

The youthful characters of the main plot contrast with the older characters in the subplot, and this contrast echoes one of the play’s themes. The main thematic material – the contrast of youthful optimism and energy with age and disillusionment, and the difference between romantic objectification and real love between equals – is carried by both plot strands, with each commenting on the other. The plaintive refrain to one of Feste’s songs : “Youth’s a stuff will not endure”, reminds us that ageing, pain and disappointment are the background to the comedy of energy and wit.

The character of Feste has a crucial role here. He links the two sets of characters and provides a focal point for the themes. In many ways, it is Feste, rather than Viola, who is the emotional centre of the play. Kingsley’s performance here is a risky one. He gives us a jester who is a deadpan clown, serious and scarred by life, but it’s a gamble that pays off. He creates a Feste whose humanity, even when he is torturing the hapless Malvolio in a dark dungeon, is his most prominent quality. He goes along with the fooling of Malvolio in deference to his betters, but he gives us the distinct impression that it leaves a nasty taste in his mouth. Kingsley’s Feste is a man who has seen and heard more than any of the other characters, a man who understands more but accepts less.

Bonham Carter gives us a more human Olivia than is often seen, making it seem plausible that it should be her, rather than Orsino, who falls for Viola/Cesario. Orsino is romantic and narcissistic, a kind of comic Hamlet in love with his own inactivity. He can’t respond to Viola because she’s a real person and not a romantic ideal. He is only in love with Olivia because he has an unreal image of her, and, we suspect, because she won’t have a bar of him. Bonham Carter shows us an Olivia who is feisty and strong, chafing at her restrictions and only too happy to entertain the amusing Cesario.

The subplot involving Sir Toby and Malvolio is played for its full comic effect. It is perhaps all the more funny because it treads the fine line between humour and meanness, tempering the comedy with violence and dark shadows. Mel Smith’s Toby Belch conveys just the right amounts of pomposity and menace, and Richard E Grant as Andrew Aguecheek is a fine combination of ridiculousness and pathos. The fooling of Malvolio, while very funny, is also meant to leave us feeling uncomfortable. There are some elements of life and human behaviour that are difficult to laugh off.

As with most Shakespearean comedies, the ending is mechanical and contrived, but this one still satisfies. We feel that Viola should be rewarded with Orsino’s recognition and love, because she is the only character who really knows what love is. She is the only one whose suffering is the real pain of unrequited love and not the romantic delusions of someone more interested in elegant suffering than love. This outcome is also an appropriate release of the tension between Orsino and Cesario that has been building throughout the film. We expected from the beginning, of course, that the sibling would be reunited after the inevitable confusions caused by having two identical characters. The satisfaction here comes from watching how this comes about, rather from guessing if it will happen. The Olivia and Sebastian pairing provides symmetry with Viola and Orsino.

The only asymmetry is Malvolio, but this too is as it should be. As the film’s constant background of turning autumn leaves reminds us, winter is an inevitable fact of life. So too does Malvolio’s refusal to be incorporated into the happy ending remind us that some of life’s ugliness cannot be prettied up. This is all part of Shakespeare’s complex vision of life and love, a complexity that is admirably presented in this film.