Love's Labour's Lost Details

Kenneth Branagh gives this adaptation of Shakespeare's play a lift by combining the story of four sets of lovers with a host of 1930s and 40s song-and-dance numbers. Adrian Lester shines in a sublime musical set piece, and Natascha McElhone again demonstrates the depth and beauty that will make her a major star. The film is flawed, though. The environment never transcends the feel of a studio, American stars Alicia Silverstone and Matthew Lillard are clumsy and miscast, and Branagh has lost some of the play's complexity by oversimplifying the text. Though very enjoyable in places, this has the feel of a West End show and displays little of Branagh's immense talent and imagination as a film-maker.

"...The film ends with a long, sweetly melancholic sequence....You leave the theater tipsy on Shakespeare's raillery and Ira Gershwin's wit, as though you'd had a glass or two of cheap champagne..."