Word: hoffman
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When was the last time we had a straight adaptation of a play by William Shakespeare? After DiCaprio's mumbled Romeo and Branagh's adulterated Hamlet, director Michael Hoffman has fashioned a surprisingly faithful version of Shakespeare's fairweather fantasy A Midsummer Night's Dream...
...essence, it's two hours of fluff. Not the dryer-lint variety either. We're talking sparkly, ethereal fluff here. Costumes by Academy Award winner Gabriela Pescucci and a setting under the Tuscan sun bake Titania's World in a glittery glow. Hoffman's only departure from The Riverside Shakespeare is his decision to set the romance in Victorian Italy--a transposition that further enhances the plot of romantic confusion. As the frilly dresses and neckties come off, the characters wander into a timeless forest netherworld, where sparkle is queen and the sprites are anything but virginal...
Happily, this adaptation hasn't gone the way of others featuring beautiful blonde heroines (think Great Expectations). While iambic pentameter usually complicates dialogue enough to make directors resort to other narrative devices (dance in West Side Story and gaudy cinematography in Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet), Hoffman's production miraculously retains both the language and the humor of the original version. Case in point, Calista Flockhart is surprisingly effective, delivering lightweight slams like "spite... oh hell!" with utter conviction. Less a comedy of language than a physical comedy of errors, film makes it possible to keep all the characters...
When the film isn't twinkling with glitter, it does manage some Shakespeare in Love-style gritty subplots. For all its dedication to the original version, Hoffman manages to imbue this retelling with a number of strangely random eccentricities. From pixies who bear distinct resemblance to Madonna and E.T. to a scene in which a catfight descends into Victorian female mud-wrestling, the film tosses enough curve balls to satisfy those who miss their Stoppard...
...need some oversight to get the process right. We need students and faculty to participate," protesters sang in the song, to the tune of "Fugue for Tin Horns," with lyrics by Elizabeth C. Vladeck '99 and Jascha S. Hoffman...