ESC

‘Much Ado About Nothing:’ Sigh No More

Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing is a faithful farce, set in present day but textually and tonally all Shakespeare. It’s a small film, shot in 12 days at Whedon’s own home, in black and white, modest in every way and just delightfully fun.

The cast is Whedonite-heavy. Don Pedro (Reed Diamond), Benedick (Alexis Denisof), and Claudio (Fran Kanz) arrive at Leonato’s (Clark Gregg) home with the menacing Don John (an appropriately devilish Sean Maher) and his slinky sidekick, Conrade, played in this version by a woman, Riki Lindhome. There, the wine flows and crippling love ignites (in less than 5 minutes, in true Shakespearean fashion) between Claudio and Leonato’s daughter, Hero (Jillian Morgese). A plan is forged and they’re tossed toward each other, both so in love they can’t speak words or do anything more than rub their foreheads together while intertwining their hands.

It’s sickeningly cute, really, and Hero’s cousin, Beatrice (Amy Acker) agrees. She is an independent woman who can’t be bothered with marriage, and she says so, in many clever words, over and over again. Benedick is her counterpart, and both loudly exclaim their distaste for each other, fooling no one, for it’s clear they love each other and just can’t admit it, that is, until they have a little help from their friends. Their jaunt through the film is fun and flirty. Denisof in particular plays the slapstick well – the tables turn and the caustic Beatrice and Benedick become lighthearted counterparts to the drama and darkness that takes place with Claudio and Hero when Don John stirs up trouble.

Clark Gregg plays Leonato, and I am proposing here and now to Joss Whedon that he make a movie in which Clark Gregg plays every single character, because the man is amazing. He is the most soft-spoken voice of authority in all the land; somehow his fumbles and falls are reassuring, like a warm blanket. We saw it when he played Coulson in The Avengers, and now it’s here, in Much Ado. Gregg perfectly plays a father so jovial and then suddenly so betrayed. Fran Kanz as Claudio is magnificent, utterly in love and gullible, yet not foolish, and it’s a brilliant turn from his role as Marty in Cabin in the Woods (one of my favorite movies of the last five years).

Nathan Fillion plays Dogberry, the head of a team of blubbering security officers, and they offer the most laugh-out-loud comic relief. I found Tom Lenk particularly funny, as Verges, the boisterous side cop to Fillion’s garrulous fool. It’s such classic screwball that the black and white, which at first seems like an odd choice, becomes perfectly in tune with the tone.

The performances are more than the meat of this production, and the entire cast inhabits the screwball sense in a complete and impressive manner. Shakespeare adaptations are difficult to do in a way that captures your audience and hooks them on the actual words, but Whedon’s production accomplishes just that. The wordplay and wit in Shakespeare’s comedies is so rich and so nuanced, and the rhythm and lyricism can easily catch up with and overtake the words’ meanings. But Whedon takes his time, enough time, to explore individual words and phrases and to highlight and almost comment upon the double entendres while they are being spoken.

Sigh no more ladies…Joss Whedon proves himself a capable master of small-scale subtlety, which, at this point, means the man can pretty much do anything. So here’s to hoping he keeps surprising us!

Grade: A-

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