Twelfth Night, or What You Will

Twelfth Night was an exquisite pleasure to watch. Compared with Baz Luhrmann's punchy and visionary "Romeo + Juliet", Trevor Nunn's Shakespeare adaptation is more faithful to its source. "Romeo + Juliet" hurtled along so that there was hardly time to concentrate on the demanding dialogue. Twelfth Night has a more accessible text and at the same time gives the dialogue more time, which, with "Romeo + Juliet" in mind, I see as an advantage.

The story is a comedy of mistaken identity about the siblings Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Both are saved and brought ashore, but each believes the other dead. Viola disguises herself as a man and enters the service of Duke Orsino as a messenger from the lovesick duke to the beautiful noblewoman Olivia. Olivia rejects the duke's courtship but falls in love with the messenger Cesario at first sight. That is a little inconvenient, since Cesario is Viola. Viola has become the duke's confidant and has, of course, grown fonder of her attractive master than is good for her.

The subplot takes place among Olivia's servants and her bibulous cousin Sir Toby Belch. Toby's equal is Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who woos Olivia in vain. Even the haughty steward Malvolio has sweet, ambitious dreams of Olivia, which leads Toby and the housekeeper Maria to play a trick on him. These scenes ought to be hilarious but are at most mildly amusing. Ben Kingsley is the singing fool who serves as commentator and adds melancholy to the laughter and romance. The songs Kingsley sings are actually really good and fit perfectly into the context.

The confusions are resolved when Sebastian finally turns up and the two siblings are reunited. If you don't go along with the "suspension of disbelief" that is taken for granted in the theatre, you will sit there irritated that the characters cannot see the considerable difference between the slender Imogen Stubbs and the male actor who plays her brother. I went along with the joke, which is crucial to whether the ending is effective.

Twelfth Night is directed by a man of the theatre, but Nunn has a grip on the cinematic elements that make the film a film and not filmed theatre. The actors are wonderful. It is refreshing with some new or lesser-known faces. If one were to object to anything in the film, it is the updating to the century before last. It works fine, but what is the point? At the same time one could wish for a little more naughtiness in the gender-role entanglements. One would think the censors had been lying in wait when Nunn shot the film, for it could easily have borne a little less primness.