A Midsummer Night's Dream 1999

[7.3/10] My favorite moment in the 1999 Midsummer Night’s Dream comes toward the end. The aristocrats are making fun of the admittedly, comically terrible performance of Pyramus and Thisbe by the “hard-handed” men putting it on for their amusement. And you laugh with them, because it’s terrible! The actors forget their lines. The set talks back or blows out. The lead bungles the dialogue and makes parts of it up as he goes along. It’s delightful catnip for anyone who’s enjoyed something that falls into the category of “so bad it’s good.”

And then, right when the frivolity is at its peak, the youngest actor in the troupe cuts through the camp with something real. He offers a monologue about lost love, the pain of having it torn away from you, with a sort of sincerity missing from the rest of the masquerade. For a trio of couples who’ve each been estranged from the one they love in some way, it hits home. For all the looseness of form and clumsiness of speech, here rests a nugget of truth which speaks to all who can hear it.

That’s more or less how I feel about this movie. It is light. It is ridiculous. It is grandiose. It is heavily constructed. It is a half-naked farce. It is as grounded as a hot air balloon. So much here is overplayed, from the lavish sets to the broad donkey-based comedy to the big performances that are not that far removed from the comically overblown one that Bottom gives within the world of the film.

And yet, there are these little moments that reach you. It could be an aside glance from Puck. It might be a look of recognition and acceptance between a pair of feuding fiancees reconciled in the shadow of young love permitted. It may be a horrid actor strolling home aglow after a performance “notably discharged”, only to realize, with awed wonder, that his grand dream may have more truth to it than his empty head realized.

I’d hesitate to call this interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream a great adaptation of Shakespeare’s magical comedy, despite its clear aspirations toward such a lofty status. It’s a little too indulgent, a little too in love with its own take on the material, a little too enamored with the spectacle of the thing. But the accumulation of enough moments like those surely makes it a good one.

It’s greatest boast comes in the form of Stanley Tucci as Robin Longfellow. There’s not much subtlety in his performance as the mischievous sprite, but he performs every line and gesture with such an infectious, trouble-making glee that you cannot help but love it anyway. Tucci plays Puck as hilariously unable to distinguish one mortal from another, as nursing a barely-disguised crush on his master, as amusingly tooling around with a bicycle, as delighting in each bon mot and merry mix-up caused. As arguably the most iconic character from the play, Tucci has big pointy shoes to fill, but he absolutely shines in the role and soon becomes the element most worth holding onto from the adaptation.

Its other most distinctive feature is the scale and design of the thing. I’ll confess to growing tired of the spectacle at some point. Director Michael Hoffman’s Midsummer feels visually of a piece with Steven Spielberg’s Hook in its 1990s, quasi-stagey but meticulously manicured vision of an enchanted realm. The film spends long stretches panning across magical creatures reveling around elegantly constructed forest sets and pseudo-Hellenistic structures. Hoffman and company use the scope of cinema to do and convey things visually that are much trickier on the stage, so it’s understandable why a film version would lean into the aesthetics, but the bombastic bacchanalia of it all soon grows cheesy and tiresome.

Still, it serves a purpose. There’s a distinction between the world of man, represented by the English decked out in Edwardian finery (in Italy, for some reason), and the world of the fairies, a far more imaginative and quasi-ancient realm. The furtive thieving of human technology that makes its way into the fairy’s domain, and the sprites and spirits who sneak their way into the human world sell the crossing of worlds that’s at the heart of the story.

Not all of the choices that compromise the thrust of the story are as understandable. When reading the play, it wasn’t as apparent to me how many lines Helena has compared to the other characters. (A tribute either to the seamless melodies of Shakespeare’s words or the oft-repeated notion that the young lovers are interchangeable.) But god help me, with Calista Flockhart overemoting every look and line, it becomes much more apparent. For whatever reason, the 1999 Midsummer goes all in on Flockhart, and while she’s not terrible exactly, she’s also not up to the task.

The rest of the cast performs ably, with a handful of exceptions. Christian Bale is once more believable as Helena’s tempestuous spurner turned suitor. Anna Friel and Dominic West click well together as the other pair of young lovers, with both turning in good work. David Strathairn brings a wry tone to Theseus which makes the character more distinct on the screen than on the page. Rupert Everett’s languid interpretation of Oberon and Michelle Pfeifer’s out-of-place Titania would hobble the fairy world sections of the piece were it not for Tucci’s vivaciousness.

Most notably, Kevin Kline’s Bottom is a mixed bag. His take on Bottom is plainly meant to be the star of the piece, with shtick and focus expanded beyond the source material. Kline’s routine and presence are good, so often he makes it work. But the scenery-chewing and extra real estate spent on Bottom’s misadventures quickly hits diminishing returns. That said, his non-verbal acting in particular remains stellar, especially in the closing scene.

There’s a strange sort of warmth, camaraderie, and sense that all is well in the closing sections of the film. For all the absurdity and overblown spectacle that proceeds it, the film ends on a note of sincerity. The lovers are reunited and seem genuinely touched and elated to be able to enjoy one another’s company in peace. The players are rewarded for their faltering but fleetingly transcendent effort and walk away in rapturous joy. And Bottom himself, the fool who can see through to the other world, realizes his peculiar journey may not have been so fanciful and fictional.

Theseus declares that a play where everyone dies needs no apologies, only for A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s cast to survive unscathed and Puck to dutifully offer one to the viewers. Maybe a dose of sap and easy satisfaction after nearly two hours of nonsense is cheap. But there’s a grain of truth to those rapturous final moments that abides despite this film’s excesses. Perhaps some epilogues are needed.