Realistic Settings Undercut Acting in ‘Night’

To watch Trevor Nunn’s handsome film of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” is to wish you were watching the play on stage. Its beautiful, period-perfect settings and costumes in all their magnificent realism (the film is set in the 1890s) have the effect of making everything everybody is doing and saying seem highly artificial. Nunn’s distinguished ensemble cast acts away mightily, but only fitfully do the actors actually seem to become the characters they are playing. The inevitable result is a film that only occasionally comes alive.

In his romantic comedy of intricate misapprehensions and misunderstandings Shakespeare elicits much humor and also poignancy from outrageous, delicious contrivance. On the screen, such a filigree fantasy needs to be played out against equally fantastic settings. This would make suspending disbelief of its central conceit--that of a beautiful young woman passing herself off as a decidedly delicate sailor--a whole lot easier. Imogen Stubbs’ Viola-cum-Cesario’s glued-on mustache disguises her femininity about as much as a milk mustache disguises Spike Lee’s identity in one of those milk-is-good-for-you magazine ads.

Viola and her twin brother Sebastian (Stephen Mackintosh) survive a shipwreck off the coast of the fictional country Illyria, but become separated, each not knowing whether the other is alive. Landing in unfamiliar territory, Viola decides that she might fare better in male disguise--which is also a way of keeping Sebastian’s spirit alive. As Cesario she becomes a servant to Duke Orsino (Toby Stephens), frustrated in attempting to court the tempestuous Countess Olivia (Helena Bonham Carter), who is in a long period of mourning.

When he sends Cesario to press his case, Olivia finds herself unexpectedly attracted to this Peter Pan-like creature, just as Orsino has himself. Complications and confusions swiftly escalate, and even Olivia’s elderly butler Malvolio (“The Madness of King George’s” Nigel Hawthorne, in a masterly portrayal, the film’s best) mistakenly becomes under the impression that Olivia has fallen in love with him.

It is to the credit of Nunn, past and current artistic director of the the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theater, respectively, that he tackled bringing “Twelfth Night” to the screen, apparently for the first time since a well-received 1956 Russian version. It’s certainly a far trickier business to pull off than the often-filmed Shakespearean tragedies, but perhaps no more so than “Much Ado About Nothing,” which Kenneth Branagh filmed in 1993 to considerable critical and popular acclaim.

* MPAA rating: PG, for mild thematic elements. Times guidelines: The film is suitable for all ages but is too complicated for small children to follow.

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‘Twelfth Night’

Helena Bonham Carter: Olivia

Richard E. Grant: Sir Andrew Aguecheek

Nigel Hawthorne: Malvolio

Ben Kingsley: Feste

Mel Smith: Sir Toby Belch

Imelda Staunton: Maria

Toby Stephens: Orsino

Imogen Stubbs: Viola

Stephen Mackintosh: Sebastian

Nicholas Farrell: Antonio

A Fine Line Features presentation. Director Trevor Nunn. Producers Stephen Evans and David Parfitt. Executive producer Greg Smith. Screenplay by Nunn; from the Shakespearean play. Cinematographer Clive Tickner. Editor Peter Boyle. Costumes John Bright. Music Shaun Davey. Production designer Sophie Becher. Supervising art director Ricky Eyres. Art director David Hindle. Set decorator Marianne Ford. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Royal, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 477-5581, and the Town Center 4, Bristol at Anton, South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, (714) 540-0954.