October 25, 1996
Renaissance Films
Comedy, Romance, Historical
VHS
B-
My review of the play is here: http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2011/11/twelfth-night.html. No, I wouldn't put this movie on that level-- it just doesn't build to anything-- but it is somewhat entertaining. There are some puzzling choices for setting. Why is it set in the Victorian period and filmed in Cornwall? (When I saw the movie the Fall after a trip to England, I immediately recognized St. Michael's Mount on the screen.) Not that this interferes with my enjoyment, but it is distracting. I thought the movie did a nice job balancing the queer subtext of the original, even with women in the women's roles.
The cast is overall solid and I think Imogen Stubbs does well with Viola and Cesario, very different from her duplicity as Lucy Steele in Sense & Sensibility, since she has a reason for her deception here, and she makes both characters likable. (Her Cesario is actually quite handsome and charming.) As I said in my "book" review, 30-year-old Helena Bonham Carter is lovely as Olivia, and I like how she adds some sweetness and a sense of humour to the character. Her maid Maria is played by Imelda Staunton, who had been Lucy's cousin and several years later would debut in the Harry Potter series in the same installment (fifth) as Carter, the two of them playing two very different villaineses. Mel Smith plays Olivia's drunken uncle and does it with more subtlety than he showed in his brief self-direction in The Tall Guy. Nigel Hawthorne, who plays Malvolio, would be Rodney Fraser in The Object of My Affection.
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