You don’t have to know “Love’s Labour’s Lost” well (who does?) to sense something is missing. Branagh keeps the scaffolding only: the King of Navarre (Alessandro Nivola) and his three best friends (Branagh, Adrian Lester and Matthew Lillard) take a public oath to devote themselves to study for three years, forswearing women and more than three hours’ sleep a night. Their asceticism is put to the test with the arrival of the Princess of France (Alicia Silverstone) with three alluring maidens in tow (Natascha McElhone, Emily Mortimer and Carmen Ejogo). Faster than you can sing “Cheek to Cheek,” all their hearts–along with their vows–are broken.
With the exception of a beguiling ode to love delivered by Branagh, and some inspired clowning by Timothy Spall as a buffoonish Spanish general in love (he’s like a Botero painting come to life), very little of Shakespeare lingers in the mind at the end of the movie. The characters remain outlines waiting to be filled in. For better or worse, the musical numbers overpower all else: Spall’s Latinized version of “I Get a Kick Out of You,” Lester’s athletic dancing to “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” the melancholic “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” sung by each of the lovers as they are forced to part on the eve of World War II. Broad and wildly uneven, this “Labour” teeters on the edge of the amateur. Yet it’s hard not to root for its moonstruck spirit, or to succumb to the panache of the pastiche. Gershwin–¡si! Shakespeare? Not quite.
Love’s Labour LostMiramax Opens June 9
