This is not a very good Shakespeare in my estimation, though everyone looks for different things, probably valuing others. There is no grand struggle here for control over the universe, and of course none of what happens — struggle or no — happens in the language.
But it is a crackling good movie. It has Shirley Henderson in the main role. I've long admired how she grabs the frame. Instead of her being defeated by a barrage of words, completely submerged as the real Kate is, she wins. She wins because everything around her is controlled by her. When the couple is happy, it is because both her character allows his quirks and also because she lets him into the film she commands as an actress. In time, she may become as tiresome as Judi Dench, but for now she is welcome.
This has a terrific score. Someone paid a lot of attention there.
And it does do something Will would: it shamelessly quotes and bends the genre. This is a date movie, plain and simple, under an intelligent commentary on date movies. With the play, the notion of instant, deep love had to be pulled out of exotic myth. We moderns have date movies to convince us what love is, and that it exists in a sparkley form.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
But it is a crackling good movie. It has Shirley Henderson in the main role. I've long admired how she grabs the frame. Instead of her being defeated by a barrage of words, completely submerged as the real Kate is, she wins. She wins because everything around her is controlled by her. When the couple is happy, it is because both her character allows his quirks and also because she lets him into the film she commands as an actress. In time, she may become as tiresome as Judi Dench, but for now she is welcome.
This has a terrific score. Someone paid a lot of attention there.
And it does do something Will would: it shamelessly quotes and bends the genre. This is a date movie, plain and simple, under an intelligent commentary on date movies. With the play, the notion of instant, deep love had to be pulled out of exotic myth. We moderns have date movies to convince us what love is, and that it exists in a sparkley form.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.