Review: A Midsummer Night's Dream

"What fools these mortals be!" sighs the fairy trickster Puck (Stanley Tucci) during Michael Hoffman's visually resplendent adaptation of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. When it comes to matters of the heart, how right Puck is, yet the fairies themselves are not immune to indulging in love games of their own.

Monte Athena in Italy at the turn of the 19th century. Necklines were high but bustles were out and, as a result, the newly invented bicycle was being put to greater use. Parents were rigid and marriage was seldom a matter of love. One such parent, Egeus (Bernard Hill), comes before Duke Theseus (David Strathairn), who is preparing to take a hesitant Hippolyta (Sophie Marceau) as his bride. Egeus' daughter Hermia (Anna Friel) has been promised to Demetrius (Christian Bale) who loves her not, though her heart belongs to Lysander (Dominic West) who loves her true. Egeus convinces Theseus to force Hermia to marry Demetrius, much to the disappointment of Hippolyta.

The lovers, however, plot to escape through the woods during the night. Hermia divulges their plans to her friend Helena (Calista Flockhart), who is madly in love with Demetrius and can't understand why he can't see her with lovestruck eyes as she does he and he does Hermia. "Teach me how you look," she pouts to Hermia. To win Demetrius over, she decides to tell him about the lovers' flight into the forest. All couples converge in the forest during the fairy hour and when Puck puts the love spell on the wrong person, hilarity ensues. Soon Lysander is forsaking Hermia to pursue Helena. But he has to get through the suddenly smitten Demetrius. Meanwhile, the insecure Helena believes they're all conspiring to mock her.

In another part of the forest arrives Nick Bottom (Kevin Kline) and his band of actors (Roger Rees, Max Wright, Gregory Jbara, Bill Irwin and Sam Rockwell) to rehearse a play they hope to put on for the Duke's wedding celebration. Bottom is a perfect fit for the virtuosic Kline, who is arguably our foremost interpreter of Shakespeare in the States. Bottom believes he's the greatest actor but the belief is not steeped in arrogance. Rather, it is a way for him to escape the reality of his world, which features an unhappy marriage, and be better than himself. Through his foolishness emerges a noble heart.

Bottom is turned into an ass by Puck and, despite his new appearance, finds himself the object of Titania's (Michelle Pfeiffer) affection. Titania is the fairy queen and she has been put under a spell by her husband Oberon (Rupert Everett) who, while she sleeps, whispers in her ear, "Wake when some vile thing is near." Yet when she does awake and look starry-eyed upon Bottom, jealousy weaves its spell on Oberon. But he has to straighten the mess Puck has made of Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius before he can lift the spell from Titania.

Perhaps it should be law that no other should adapt Shakespeare for the screen save for Kenneth Branagh, who manages the miracle of making Shakespeare's language not only comprehensible but understandable as well. Hoffman actually acquits himself well, but Shakespeare's tales have always been universal and therefore translate, whatever the quality of the production. I wouldn't go so far to say that Hoffman's film is superior but it is superior to that of William Dieterle and Max Reinhardt's equally sumptuous 1935 film adaptation, which was overextended and histrionic and had an unrelentingly obnoxious Mickey Rooney as Puck.

Who better to play the fairy queen than the stunningly ethereal Michelle Pfeiffer whose inner radiance dignifies Titania? Everett is coolly seductive, a Narcissus for our time. The quartet of Bale, Flockhart, Friel and West do fine work. Flockhart, especially, proves what an excellent comic touch she has. Her Helena is perhaps the most enjoyable of the four and the one that rings truest if only because she is the most lovesick. "I am your spaniel," she tells Demetrius, "and the more you beat on me, the more I fawn on you." He may reject her time and again but she will not be dissuaded. "I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell," she promises.

Shakespeare wrote this comedy after Romeo and Juliet and it might well have been his way of poking fun at the doom and gloom which pervaded those titular lovers who literally died to be together. People utter such pledges in A Midsummer Night's Dream but they often fall on deaf ears or are met with a roll of the eyes. Even Titania's fairies bore of their queen's new paramour. Love's wisdom and whims are shown in their variations. As Bottom puts it: "Reason and love keep little company nowadays."

The film is capped with the playing of Bottom and company's play which tells the tale of two star-crossed lovers. The players botch and ham it up -- Kline is masterful during this sequence -- but whatever a play's follies, as with humans, it is love that cannot be laughed at for a beating heart cannot laugh at something pure and true.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Directed by: Michael Hoffman

Written by: Michael Hoffman; based on the play by William Shakespeare

Starring: Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett, Stanley Tucci, Calista Flockhart, Christian Bale, Anna Friel, Dominic West, Sophie Marceau, Roger Rees, David Strathairn, Sam Rockwell, Bill Irwin, Bernard Hill, John Sessions, Max Wright, Gregory Jbara