# Midsummer Night's Dream, A (1999)

### reviewed by
Scott Renshaw

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (Fox Searchlight) Starring: Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett, Stanley Tucci, Calista Flockhart, Anna Friel, Christian Bale, Dominic West, David Strathairn, Sophie Marceau. Screenplay: Michael Hoffman, based on the play by William Shakespeare. Producers: Leslie Urdang and Michael Hoffman. Director: Michael Hoffman. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (adult themes, brief nudity) Running Time: 115 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

The cinematic cynic in me suspects that the lofty, unwieldy title of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM has as much to do with timely marketing as it does with a nod to literary fidelity. After all, when adults are flocking to the Oscar-winning SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE and teens are catching "The Taming of the Shrew" turned into 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, the Bard would seem to be riding a unique wave of cross-demographic hipness. Then again, Shakespeare has always been pitched both at the gallery and at the groundlings, mixing the matters of kings with the matters of clowns. To that extent, this MIDSUMMER NIGHT is truly William Shakespeare's in its mix of disparate elements, with all the delights and potential pitfalls that accompany them.

Writer/director Michael Hoffman transports the tale from Greece to 19th century Tuscany, where many plotlines swirl around the impending wedding of Duke Theseus (David Strathairn) and Hippolyta (Sophie Marceau). Hermia (Anna Friel), the daughter of one of Theseus' courtiers, is forcefully engaged to marry Demetrius (Christian Bale), but Hermia instead shares a love with Lysander (Dominic West). Demetrius, meanwhile, is the object of affection of Hermia's childhood friend Helena (Calista Flockhart). Another thread finds a group of amateur actors, led by the weaver Nick Bottom (Kevin Kline), preparing a play to be performed for the Duke's wedding, perhaps to receive an award if it is well-liked. The paths of these characters all cross in the nearby forest, where complications ensue as the machinations of the Fairy King Oberon (Rupert Everett) and his mischievous servant Puck (Stanley Tucci) -- aided by a little love potion -- cause every romantic entaglement to become further entangled.

At its most basic level, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM is a precursor to bedroom farce without the slamming doors (doors being hard to come by in the forest). As the enchanted lovers become a circle of frustration -- Lysander is made to love Helena, who still loves Demetrius, who still loves Hermia, who still loves Lysander -- saucy exchanges alternate with good old-fashioned female mud wrestling. It takes more than a little while for the film to find its pacing, hindered by the atypically awkward work of Strathairn, but once the pleasantly low-tech, stage-set world of the forest becomes the focus, the high and low comedy both begin working. The one major hindrance may be the clash of acting styles: while Bale, Friel and West go for pure Royal Shakespeare, Flockhart plays Helena as a neurotic mess fretting over her appearance a la Ally McBeal. It's an interesting interpretation, but one that doesn't always mesh with the other players.

The other major sub-plot becomes both A MIDSUMMER NIGHT DREAM's high point and its source of greatest disappointment. Kevin Kline, turning in one of his better performances, plays Nick Bottom as a wonderfully tragi-comic sadsack, an unhappily married laborer with grand dreams of how the stage will offer him a chance at greatness. When he is simultaneously transformed into an ass and into the object of desire of the love potion-affected Fairy Queen Titania (Michelle Pfeiffer), it's touching to note how his moment of glory makes him oblivious to his physical state. Unfortunately, Hoffman doesn't exploit Kline's performance for all it can offer, never really delivering a satisfying resolution to the character he has set up.

He does, however, build to a wonderfully comic climax as the actors finally perform their play within the play. The bumbling performance is pure slapstick -- malapropped lines, misaligned props, over-the-top acting and, to quote SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, a bit with a dog. The one nice twist comes as Flute (Sam Rockwell), the actor-in-drag performing the ingenue in the play, breaks from character to deliver an earnest paean to true love. It's a sweet note on which to end a play of sometimes discordant tones, perhaps making this DREAM seem less uneven that it should. The course of this tale about the course of true love never does run smooth; it merely offers a fanciful comedy deserving enough of the author's name.

         On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 enchanted forests:  7.

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