User Reviews

Trevor Nunn's beautifully photographed and acted, deftly written film is one of the most enjoyable adaptations of a Shakespeare play ever made. Helena Bonham Carter is pitch perfect as the beautiful Olivia, who in "deep mourning" for her dead brother, falls in love with Cesario (who happens to be a woman named Viola dressed up as a man, wonderfully played by Imogen Stubbs, the only actress I've ever seen able to create both a charming Viola and a totally believable Cesario), meanwhile Viola falls for the Duke of fictional Illyria (the exquisite Toby Stephens) who is desperately in love with the Lady Olivia. Meanwhile, Viola's lost twin brother (Steven Mackintosh of "Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets", excellent again here) winds up in Illyria and adds to the confusion. Wonderful, layered support comes from Ben Kingsley playing Feste, Olivia's fool. The only flaw, perhaps, is the few minutes before the conclusion when everything seems to be coated with a thick gloss of sugar; the film comes through this unscathed. Trevor Nunn comes through with an exquisite Shakespeare film adaptation (which is a do or die task). A great showcase for the heavenly cast featuring some of the best performances ever by Bonham Carter (save "Wings of the Dove"), Kingsley (in his best supporting turn ever), novice Stubbs, and Stephens. A very worthwhile effort. Rent it, you won't be let down.

Reading Trevor Nunn's thoughts on his film, it is easy to conclude that they were lucky to obtain such sublime weather for the large duration of the filming, in November. The Cornwall locations are absolutely enchanting; showing an England so far from the urban norm these days. The beautiful natural light, with later dark contrasts, perfectly complements the jovial, winning mood of this Shakespeare comedy brought to screen: and, what is more, this is truly beyond any sense of 'heritage cinema', as Shakespeare's genius is retained.

Yes, it is all a very 'accessible' package, but much is unusual and distinctive to this film adaptation. Ben Kinglsey is perhaps the most glaring instance of a radical re-invisioning; his acting - stripped bare of artifice - is utterly compelling and keeps you watching his every mannerism. This Feste is an eccentric, multi-talented clown and performer, but he also bears words of cutting, melancholy truth. Indeed, both are wonderfully combined with the gorgeously sad scene of Staunton, Grant and Smith listening to his sad song: they listen and the words cut into their veneers. Loneliness is at their very core. What a brilliantly rounded comedy this is; balanced by melancholy - the inch-perfect awry note struck by Hawthorne's Malvolio appearing at the end - and good will - the comradely bonhomie that Grant and Smith are indeed shown to share.

Hawthorne and perhaps more surprisingly Mel Smith and Richard E. Grant really do a fine job and imbuing some real character in their parts; treading a line between broad comedic playing and human sadness. Along with Kingsley's career-best (? not seen too many of his films) performance, they lend this film its heart, and play very well against the wonderful settings. Mackintosh and Stubbs are I guess a little less compelling, but these roles are really difficult to carry off... nothing about them really lingers too long in the memory, like Kingsley's expressions, bizarre little pieces of dance and his pared-down delivery. Helena Bonham Carter is perhaps overly assured as the vain countess dame, Olivia: oh so archly bemused when faced by the cross-gartered, prancing Hawthorne, but generally Ms. Bonham Carter is very much in her usual, predictably petulant, period-costume mode. Which is probably being unfair; she does convince, at the end of the day.

Overall then, a wonderfully colourful delight, bearing the flavour of bright, melancholy late summer-into-autumn. A strange chill is cast by the compelling Kinglsey; a sadness that cannot be dispelled. This film has light amusement in addition to this real edge, and is ultimately a very affecting rendering of a bona fide Shakesperean classic.

Slick Shakespeare adaptation, well acted and very humorous (in parts) in its telling. Naturally, there's always going to be some differences from stage to cinema. The film took advantage of this, of course, to avoid a "stage" feel. The perceptions, or rather the misperceptions, of people and motivations are well explored and portrayed. Ben Kingsley is a standout, for his interesting twist on the character Feste. In short, a good adaptation and film. Recommended.

As with most Shakespearian comedies, the plot is deeply implausible. However, the excellent Cornish locations at St Michael's Mount & Lanhyrock give a good sense of place and the winter setting (apart from the scene of apple picking!) comes across well - it really does look like an English winter, rather than a picture postcard snow-scene.

The play is cut down to a manageable length without losing the sense of it, The broad comedy aspects (Toby Belch et al) are thankfully limited.

The acting is well done by a cast of British stalwarts. Amazingly, Viola and Sebastian actually do look broadly alike.

This film is best viewed as an amusing light romantic comedy rather than a side-splitter.

In one of the DVD extras, a producer praises director Trevor Nunn as knowing more about Shakespeare than any man in England. (Not true, it's John Barton. But that's another story.)

Unfortunately, Nunn attempts to demonstrate his erudition in this beautifully photographed, somewhat medicinal misfire. In an attempt to serve up Shakespeare to everyone, he's bogged himself down in self-conscious paralysis. Despite the beautiful images and the star-studded cast, this is an airless, spineless lump.

Imogen Stubbs (Mrs. Nunn) is quite fine as Viola, and Richard E. Grant maintains great energy as Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Just about everybody else is sabotaged by a leaden pace and a heavy directorial hand. Nigel Hawthorne's Malvolio is destroyed by the glacial tempo, and Helena Bonham Carter's charm wilts at half speed.

Mel Smith is beautifully cast as Sir Toby Belch, but is also just too darn slow. In a major miscalculation, Ben Kingsley's plays Feste as a menacing ex-con, perhaps Abel Magwitch strayed in from "Great Expectations." This is a Killer Klown from Kornwall.

And in order to keep things this sluggish, at least a third of the text of the play is missing. It's the language that makes Shakespeare immortal, not the plots. Bad idea....

Oddly enough, in group scenes, actors often lose character, just standing around staring blankly at whoever is talking. You never see this in films, and you shouldn't. It should never happen.

There is a 1969 ITV version circulating with Sir Alec Guinness as Malvolio and Sir Ralph Richardson as Sir Toby Belch to remind us of how far we haven't come.

But best of all is the 1980 BBC DVD with Felicity Kendall, Sinead Cusack, Alec McCowen, Robert Hardy and Robert Lindsay. That "Twelfth Night" is an ensemble delight from beginning to end, with a full text and virtually flawless in engaging the play successfully on every level at once. Run, don't walk. It's a genuine treat.

This is, quite simply, the best production of a Shakespeare comedy ever filmed. The plot is delightfully absurd, the acting brilliant, the direction superb. It is the sort of comedy you can watch over and over again.

A lively, bubbly production of one of Shakespeare's more difficult plays. It's hard to know just what Shakespeare was getting at with this story. The text doesn't always seem to make sense. That's reflected in this, as well as any other, production. At times, one wonders what the expressions on characters' faces are meant to indicate. Just after Feste has fooled Malvolio with his imitation of the curate, for instance, Maria has a perturbed look on her face. As if the joke that she herself so elaborately designed now troubles her. There's nothing in the text to indicate that her expression should show remorse; and yet Sir Toby soon after says that he's sick of the whole thing. Why? That's one example of the difficulty of the text (which may have been corrupted over the centuries), and how it is manifested in this particular production's choices. I don't know why Sir Toby remarks at this point that he's sick of the joke, nor do I know whether Maria should share his feelings.

Another difficulty is the role of Feste. Ben Kingsley fills this role, and because Ben Kingsley is a major star, he magnifies this character (in my opinion) out of all proportion. He becomes a sort of Zen master, pompous and oppressive. His jokes aren't funny (maybe we can't find Shakespeare's jokes funny today, but Kingsley's heavy delivery precludes humor), and his last confrontation with Malvolio comes off as a sort of thundering divine retribution. The entire play, the entire cast, stops dead and Feste takes over as if the whole point of the play has been his apotheosis at the expense of the degraded Malvolio. This surely cannot be what Shakespeare had in mind. Throughout the play he has a disconcerting habit of staring at other characters or the camera with what almost be described as a leer.

Maybe Shakespeare would have sighed and commiserated with the producer of this film, because the clowns in his day were also big stars who demanded a lot of meat in their roles. The trouble is that there just isn't much meat in Feste's role according to the text, so we're stuck with leers and thundering retribution and other inventions. Shakespeare had to accommodate his clowns with ever-more important roles, climaxing with characters like Touchstone and Lear's fool. Kingsley is just inventing his own character. At times his work is interesting, but his weight in the production is, as I said, oppressive.

Still, his screen time is relatively small, and much of the rest of the play is a joy, even if the point of the story isn't always clear. Bonham-Carter was never more alluring, Hawthorne is priceless as Malvolio (he was born for the role), and Smith and Grant are the perfect combination of Belch and Aguecheek. I suppose you might object that all four of them put their eyebrows to such prodigious use that their acting might be characterized as hamming. But I don't see how any of these characters can be played straight if the play is to work.

One thing is for sure, no one would ever accuse this production of bogging down. The pace is lively, the sets and the cinematography are always striking, the score is invigorating, and I suspect that I could watch this film dubbed in Swahili and it would still be a lot of fun. Visually arresting is perhaps the best description.

In Illyria, Orsino (Toby Stephens), a nobleman, is saddened because he cannot have the love of Lady Olivia (Helena Bonham-Carter) who is mourning the loss of her brother. Meanwhile, twins Sebastian (Stephen Mackintosh) and Viola (Imogen Stubbs) both survive a terrible shipwreck off the coast, but each thinks the other has died. Viola takes the guise of a man and goes to work in the household of the nobleman, falling in love with Duke Orsino. Meanwhile Olivia is taken with Viola who calls herself Cesario. This is the premise of one of William Shakespeare's most appealing comedies, Twelfth Night: Or What You Will, updated from Elizabethan England to late 19th century and brought to life by director Trevor Nunn. It is one of the best interpretations of Shakespeare that I have seen on film.

Reminiscent of other Shakespearean cross-dressing comedies such as As You Like It, Twelfth Night is mostly about the ins and outs of romantic love but it is also about pride, "overweening ambition", disguises, and mistaken identities. The play contains some of Shakespeare's most memorable characters: Sir Toby Belch (Mel Smith), Olivia's drunken uncle, his friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Richard E. Grant) who is also trying to court Olivia, Olivia's gentlewoman Maria (Imelda Staunton), Feste (Ben Kingsley), the house clown, and Malvolio (Nigel Hawthorne) the prudish steward. Nunn has assembled a cast that more than does justice to the play. Imogen Stubbs as Viola actually looks like a handsome young man and has a sense of purity and innocence that makes her instantly likable. Helena Bonham Carter brings warmth to the character of Olivia who like Orsino seems to be in love with the idea of love not the reality. Some have noticed a similarity between the character of Olivia and Queen Elizabeth and interestingly, Olivia is addressed by Feste as "madonna", the only time the word is used in all of Shakespeare, perhaps a wry comment about the myth of the Virgin Queen.

The main story involves a love triangle between Orsinio, Viola, and Olivia but the minor characters have more than ample time on stage. Malvolio is both a comic and a tragic figure, said to caricature Sir Christopher Hatton, a courtier, romantic pursuer of the Queen and rival of the Earl of Oxford. Hatton was so fawning Elizabeth called him her "sheep" or "mutton" and this allusion is present early in the play as Malvolio is called a "rascally sheep-biter", harking back to Hatton's letter assuring Elizabeth that "The sheep hath no tooth to bite while the Boar's (Oxford) tusk doth raze and tear." Malvolio is a puritan who rails against people having fun, a trait that earns him the enmity of Sir Toby and Maria. To strike back, Maria engineers a joke on Malvolio. She forges a love letter supposedly from Olivia telling him that if he wants her to notice him, he should dress in yellow stockings and crossed garters and, as he woos Olivia dressed in his strange attire, Malvolio cuts a ridiculous figure (incidentally this is the same costume worn by Henry VIII when he danced with Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth's mother, at a masked ball, before he had her beheaded for adultery).

While there are many great performances, the star for me is Ben Kingsley who is totally convincing as Feste, a fool but a knowing one who functions as an objective commentator of the scene around him, exuding an air of righteous superiority. His portrayal of the priest Sir Topas who interrogates Malvolio in a darkened room has overtones of the 1581 trial and execution of Edmund Campion, a Jesuit priest who was executed by the English government in 1581. In his speech of less than fifty words, which appears to resemble nothing but nonsense, there are no less than five phrases which refer directly to Edmund Campion and his 1580-81 mission to England.

Richard Desper has pointed out that the mock trial scene works as a parody of the government persecution of Catholic martyrs. "The playwright," he writes, "demonstrates for us a world turned upside down, with clowns passing themselves off as men of learning, while men of learning …are pressed to deny what they believe to be true to serve political ends." The ending is too delightful to give anything away but it reminded me of the Ingmar Bergman comedy Smiles of a Summer Night, where mismatched couples get together at a summer cottage to sort everything out. Malvolio is pitiable in trying to redeem a shred of dignity but we feel for him when he exits saying, "I shall be revenged on the whole pack of you". As he leaves, he is the only person suffering in a sea of happy faces, those on screen as well as those at home.

As frequently happens with "Twelfth Night," the director and screen writers extensively revamped Shakespeare's script. The concept, of a nineteenth century wartime background, is not inconsistent with the play, but costuming, lighting and cinematography combined to make many scenes excessively dark, almost soupy. The comedians, Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, were decidedly unamusing throughout most of their scenes. Ben Kingsley is unexpected as Feste, the jester, but provided a quality performance although not a sprightly one. Bright spots came from the interaction of "Cesario" and Orsino, and a bright performance by Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia, who played mournful sister, besotted lover and imperious noblewoman with equal brilliance. Her reaction shots when the existence of the twins comes out in (the play's) Act V Scene 2 raised the production single-handedly from a mediocrity to an reasonably good show. In all, this is the best ""Twelfth Night" currently available. The problems are all in the production end, while the performances are, if not always great, certainly up to what should be expected of a fine - if sometimes inappropriate - cast.

Reading other reviews of 'Twelfth Night' it is interesting to see that some people think it is a slow film and others quite fast. It gripped me from the opening gust of rain on a dark night to Feste dancing off into the sunset. Grappling with Shakespeare is a perilous activity but I thought Trevor Nunn brought out the comedy and the emotions of the story well. It is a film to make you smile at the follies of mankind but also their charm.

Ben Kingsley is amazing. I've never seen Feste played that way but it seemed perfect. Imogen Stubbs does the comedy and the drama equally well. The scene with Orsino in the bathtub is a stock one but she does it beautifully, balancing the humour of the situation with the tenderness and the longing. Imelda Staunton brings unusual depth to the character of Maria. The rest of the cast are great too.

The text of the play is changed around but not unnaturally so. The scene that cuts between Feste's song and Viola/Cesario and Orsino playing cards is wonderful, taking in eight of the characters and telling you more about them. The last act of the play is difficult to stage well but Nunn gives it a good shot.

The Cornwall setting is lovely, the radiant sunshine, the green leaves and fine buildings are captured gorgeously by the cameras. I also liked the music very much and find some of the tunes quite hummable.

Very enjoyable and worth seeing again and again.

AVERAGE. My assessment for this film is purely in terms of 'entertainment', okay? And in this regard, without considering others, my grade is just average. It is an adaptation of one of William Shakespeare's works. The performance is good and very theatrical with extravagant gestures, caricatures, expressions, language, humor, typical of medieval British theatrical comedies. It's kind of a comic opera. Recommended for lovers of literary classics adapted to cinematography. I am not particularly a big fan of this type of film, but I would not be bothered to watch others of the same kind.

At one time adaptors of Shakespeare for the cinema trended to concentrate more on his tragedies and history plays rather than his comedies. The 1990s, however, saw two very fine adaptations of Shakespearean comedies, Kenneth Branagh's "Much Ado about Nothing" and Trevor Nunn's "Twelfth Night".

"Twelfth Night" is another name for the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th, and the action of the play is supposed to take place around that date. Nunn, however, did not shoot this film in winter but in autumn; filming actually took place in November, but the crew were mostly lucky with the weather and the look of the countryside might suggest late September or early October. Although the setting is still officially "Illyria", an old name for Croatia, Nunn effectively updates the action to Victorian England. The film was shot on location in Cornwall, with St Michael's Mount standing in for Orsino's palace and Lanhydrock for Olivia's mansion.

Unlike his contemporary Marlowe in "Edward II", Shakespeare never dealt directly with the subject of homosexuality, but "Twelfth Night" is perhaps the play in which he came closest to dealing with it by implication. The plot revolves around a curious love-triangle, A loves B, who loves C, who loves A. Orsino, Duke of Illyria, is in love with the beautiful countess Olivia. She, however, has no interest in Orsino, but has fallen for "Cesario", the handsome young man whom Orsino uses as his go-between. Unknown to both Orsino and Olivia, however, the supposed "Cesario" is really a disguised woman, Viola- who has fallen in love with her employer. An extra complication- and a possible solution to the problem- arises when Viola's identical twin brother Sebastian, whom she previously believed to be dead, arrives on the scene. (Yes, I know that in reality you cannot have identical opposite-sex twins, but Shakespearean comedies are not noted for their strict realism).

The lesbian overtones to the Olivia/Viola relationship would probably have been rather muted in Shakespeare's day when all female roles would have been played by boys, but here Helena Bonham-Carter and Imogen Stubbs (the director's wife) make the most of them. Even with the assistance of a quasi-military uniform and a false moustache, the lovely Imogen never looks particularly masculine, so there is an implication that Olivia has fallen for someone she consciously believes to be male but subconsciously knows to be female. The gay overtones to the relationship between Toby Stephens' Orsino and "Cesario", and to that between Sebastian and Antonio, the sea-captain who has befriended him, are perhaps even stronger. Certainly, Orsino's conversations with "Cesario" seem remarkably intimate if he really does believe his young companion to be male.

Along with the likes of "Much Ado…" and "As You Like It", "Twelfth Night" is sometimes described as a "joyous" comedy in contradistinction to more "problematic" comedies like "Measure for Measure" and "All's Well that Ends Well". It does, however, have its darker side; several characters, for example, have recently suffered bereavement, or believe themselves to have done so, and this production tends to stress the darkness underlying the play. The autumnal setting contributes to this feeling, as does the fact that most of the characters are seen dressed in black.

The dark overtones are particularly pronounced in the sub-plot involving Olivia's steward, Malvolio. He is sometimes played simply as a narrow- minded Puritan and his adversary Sir Toby as a jovial, lovable old man whose only concern is to have his "cakes and ale". For Nunn, however, matters are not so simple. Nigel Hawthorne's Malvolio- the one character for whom there is no happy ending- is an essentially tragic figure, a dignified and dedicated servant who is tricked into making a fool of himself by a gang of people who have taken an irrational dislike to him. His name is derived from the Italian for "ill will", yet its significance here may be that Malvolio is not so much the perpetrator of malice as the victim of the malice of others.

There is an excellent performance from Mel Smith, better known as a television comedian, as Sir Toby. Smith brings out both the nastiness and the sadness which lie at the heart of his character. Sir Toby is a man of wealth and noble family (he is Olivia's uncle) who has spent his whole life in feasting, drinking and womanising and who has a fondness for cruel practical jokes; besides his tricking of Malvolio he dupes his friend Andrew Aguecheek and "Cesario" into fighting a duel. (Both acquit themselves surprisingly well, given that one is really a woman and the other an arrant coward). Yet there is also an implied sadness about Smith's characterisation; Toby knows that his life has been a wasted one, but feels that it is too late to amend.

Besides Hawthorne and Smith there are too many good contributions to single them all out individually. I must, however, mention Stubbs, who is able to suggest both a male persona and the underlying woman, and Ben Kingsley as Olivia's jester Feste, whom he plays less as a clown than as a sardonic old philosopher, an eccentric but also a man gifted with penetrating insights into human life.

"Twelfth Night" is one of Shakespeare's best-known comedies, and like all well-known Shakespeare plays it has become very familiar in the theatre. A good director, however, whether in the theatre or on screen, will always be able to find something new to say about it, and that is what Nunn has done here. He and his cast have found new insights into this great play, enabling us to see it with new eyes. An excellent production. 9/10

The photography on this movie is great, and a lot of the acting is great -- but some of the scenes get very heavy-handed (it's supposed to be a comedy, but somebody's crying every 10 minutes...) and grim which distracts from the flow of the movie and is unnecessary.

If Shakespeare were this dead, we'd all be reading Ben Jonson instead.

Pretty pictures and big names don't guarantee the illusion of life.

We need people to move, to have energy, to make us care about what happens to them. It's a comedy, remember?

This was more like a glossy coffee-table picture book of fabulous house interiors. An uninhabited house.

Shakespeare wrote a whole raft of interesting people.

I wanted to get interested in these people up there on the screen, but they were all on life-support, like a group coma punctuated by an occasional wake.

"O for a muse of fire!" Or at least a director with some.

In writing Twelfth Night (and the same goes for many other of his romantic comedies), Shakespeare showed that he was not only a genius at dark tragedy but also at light comedy. I saw a junior college production of this play which did live up to Shakespeare's intentions, which was in fact so funny I was falling off my chair.

Unfortunately, director Nunn will not allow a hilarious slapstick comedy to just be a hilarious slapstick comedy. Apparently he succumbed to the notion that everything Shakespearean has somehow to seem profound, which in this case results in an attempt to transfer this light, sparkling comedy, full of deliberately overdrawn characters and silly lines and pratfalls, into a brooding tragedy in which pompous ass Malvolio acts as if he were, or imagined himself to be, Hamlet caught in the wrong play, while clown Feste is misanthropic to the point of sadism. There is no suggestion of comic timing anywhere in this film!

It appears that once Nunn decided to insist on a modern-dress version, he adopted as his mentor the let's-portray-the-messed-up-dysfunctional-household school. This is stupid. A better mentor would have been a closer modern equivalent of what Shakespeare was doing in this play. Something like I Love Lucy or Amos 'n' Andy or The Honeymooners, in other words.

One thing that entirely puzzles me is: why the devil didn't Nunn exploit the particular advantages of the cinema in depicting this gender-bender story of a girl impersonating a look-alike boy? Why in sam hill didn't Nunn have a male actor who is skilled at female impersonation, or an actress skilled at impersonating males, play both roles on a split screen? (See, for the sort of impersonation I refer to, Vanessa Redgrave as the trans-sexual tennis player in Second Serve.) In other words: Why transform a stage play into a film at all, if you're not going to put the advantages of the cinema, as opposed to those of the stage, to work? Nunn's treatment of this play is not only a mangled interpretation, it's unimaginative.

Ben Kingsley is the only performer who does very much with his part, and what he does he does very well. His acting creates a very interesting character, and his interpretation of Feste is certainly consistent, but it receives no support whatsoever from the text.

I'm no big fan of Shakespeare's comedies, much preferring his darker fare like the tragedies, but TWELFTH NIGHT is a riotous film brought ably to life by theatre director Trevor Nunn. He assembles a cast of seasoned professionals who turn the material into something special, despite the lengthy running time. Shakespeare's story of mistaken identity and the attempts of numerous suitors attempting to woo a countess is certainly a fast-paced and chaotic affair.

Helena Bonham Carter headlines the cast in a decent early role, and she's supported by the likes of Nigel Hawthorne, Toby Stephens, and Nicholas Farrell. The most fun comes from the likes of Richard E. Grant and Mel Smith playing ridiculously slapstick characters, although the scene-stealer here is Ben Kingsley as the fool. The production is colourful and vibrant, and my only complaint is the 19th century setting, which sits at odds with the source material. I've never really got the need to contemporise classic works like this.

Though filmed for the most part in picturesque, sun-drenched Cornish exteriors, this is a rather sombre, steady account of Shakespeare's great, complex play. At times it's genuinely touching, but very rarely funny: Trevor Nunn's direction pitches it rather more as a BBC-esque costume drama than a comedy. Ben Kingsley can't sing but is nonetheless a charismatic, intriguing Feste; Nigel Hawthorne is particularly effective in Malvolio's final scenes, somewhere close to Madness of King George territory, while Imogen Stubbs is an engaging Viola (and reasonably credible Cesario) throughout. Imelda Staunton's Maria stands out too: she gives the impression of being the only remotely level-headed person in Illyria, and her understated distancing of herself from the plot against Malvolio as it becomes crueller is nicely observed. Nunn's direction could do with more subtle touches like that - and it could also do with rather more wit and lightness to offset the prevailing melancholy.

Cinema is rather cruel to the Renaissance stage conceit that identical twins really do appear identical. And perhaps there are other, specifically theatrical artificialities about "Twelfth Night" that don't translate naturally to the screen - like its whole plot, for example. Overall, a serious, honourable but not inspired attempt.

Trevor Nunn's adaptation of Twelfth Night is exceptionally beautiful, well acted, and emotionally engaging. Ben Kingsley's performance as the Fool stands out as magnificent, but the entire ensemble comes off very well. The film nails both the joy and the darkness of Shakespeare's play - and the play, make no mistake, contains plenty of dark and strange moments when things go, as the drunken uncle Sir Toby Belch says, "Out of tune, sir." The filmmakers deserve credit for not glossing over the shades of sadism in Toby's treatment of Malvolio or the shallow fickleness of Orsino's character. The wintry Cornwall setting dovetails perfectly with the mood of the play, half sun and half shadow, and the costume design (roughly Edwardian, though I am not an expert on fashion history) creatively evokes the luxury of Orsino and Olivia's courtly world, while allowing for - even necessitating - the brilliant re-imagining of the Fool as bohemian vagabond.

I admit I'm no expert on Shakespeare and I'd never read 'Twelfth Night' before seeing this film, so I found it a little difficult to follow. For instance, I could never quite figure out the role of Ben Kingsley's character. I didn't find this film as accessible as two other Shakespeare adaptations which appeared near the same time, Kenneth Branagh's 'Hamlet' or 'Richard III' with Ian McKellen. Consequently, I didn't think it was as outstanding as those two were.

But enough of the negatives. There is plenty to recommend Trevor Nunn's 'Twelfth Night' and first and foremost on the list is an absolutely fabulous performance by Imogen Stubbs. I had seen her before in 'Sense and Sensibility,' where she did a fine job, but she wasn't a particular standout among that remarkable cast. Here she simply steals the show playing Viola, who masquerades as a man, Cesario. Her scenes with Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia, who is smitten with "him," are a great joy and lots of fun to watch. I don't know if any other version of 'TN' ever played up the angle of sexual ambiguity as much as this one does, but it makes it very interesting for a modern audience.

There are many other fine performances, and this is quite a lavish production as well, so on balance I found it worthwhile. But whenever I think of this film I think of Imogen Stubbs.

This is a graceful, charming, gorgeous-looking version in fairy-tale Edwardian dress, with lots of lovely indoor and outdoor shots. Imogen Stubbs is attractive and feisty as Viola/Cesario, Ben Kingsley delivers a complex and intriguing performance as the fool Feste, and Helena Bonham -Carter is a warm, humorous and devastatingly beautiful Olivia. The supporting cast is funny and lively, the schticks all work, and the ornamental garden deserves star billing.

"Twelfth Night" is a very well produced film. The cinematography is excellent, featuring nice settings and brilliant colors and shading. The music is likewise excellent and appropriate. The acting is great as well. So why am I giving this solid film only a 6/10 rating? Because I did have trouble hearing all of the dialogue and making out what they were saying. And unfortunately the DVD did not include closed captions which would have helped greatly. Therefore I give it a 6/10. I do have mixed feelings towards Shakespeare; on the one hand I do like some of his writing, but on the other hand it can be difficult to hear and understand when it's spoken quickly or softly. I would recommend this film though if you like Shakespeare; it's as fine a film adaptation of one of his plays as I've seen.

I have been reading and loving Shakespeare since year 6 of primary school. At first I didn't understand the language, but the many discussions we had about it while reading aloud improved my understanding and didn't waver my interest. Twelfth Night mayn't have the most plausible story of all the Shakespeare plays, but it is still a lot of fun.

This Twelfth Night is more than worthy. It is not thr best Shakespeare film, not like Othello, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet, but it does boast a strong cast and impeccable production values.

If I had any criticisms against this Twelfth Night, they would be that as well shot and as interesting as the beginning scene was, part of me found it unnecessary compared to the rest of the film and it didn't add much to the storytelling, and also it did feel a little sugar-coated towards the end.

Criticisms aside, this is a very beautiful-looking Twelfth Night, with the luscious photography, autumnal imagery and scenery and colourful, sumptuous costumes. The music is full of memorable tunes that also do well to enhance each scene.

Trevor Nunn's direction is excellent, the dialogue is intelligently woven and delivered, the story while condensed still maintains the play's fun and spirit, all the relationships are intact and done convincingly and the pace is smart and snappy.

The acting is just great. Toby Stephens deserves credit for breathing life to Orsino, when he could easily have been bland and Imogen Stubbs is radiant. In the more comic roles, Malvolio, Sir Andrew and especially Sir Toby are hoots, and Imelda Staunton is a memorable Maria. My favourites here are Helena Bonham Carter and Ben Kingsley as Olivia and Feste, Carter is note perfect and Kingsley gives perhaps his best ever support turn.

All in all, a lot of fun and very worthy. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Gender fluidity, a love square, and Shakespeare; what more can one ask for in a movie? Twelfth Night is an adaptation of Shakespeare's play of the same name. This version, directed by Trevor Nunn in 1996 starred Imogen Stubbs, Steven Mackintosh, Ben Kingsley, and Helena Bonham Carter. Exploring such issues as the uncertainty of gender and the curse of love, the bard never shied away from a heavy story. Twelfth Night is a film with a beautiful production design accompanying Shakespeare's well-known prose, making the film an enjoyable journey for audiences of all ages.

Washed to shore after a shipwreck, aristocrat Viola (Imogen Stubbs) longs to be reunited with the brother she was separated with at sea. While attempting to navigate the new land she has been washed upon, Viola is devastated with the assumption that her brother has perished at sea. She now finds herself alone and in unfamiliar territory. Without her brother Sebastian(Steven Mackintosh), Viola must find a way to work and fend for herself. Once hearing about a Lady Olivia (Helena Bonham Carter), who is mourning the loss of her brother, Viola feels a kinship and wishes to work in Lady Olivia's home. She learns, however, that Lady Olivia is not talking to strangers and is in deep mourning over the loss of her brother. Viola then learns that a nobleman, Count Orsino lies around listening to music all day, hopelessly in love with Lady Olivia. Viola decides to dress up as a man and work in the Count's home as a way to gain proximity to Lady Olivia. Viola's life becomes complicated when she falls for Count Orsino, Count Orsino refuses to abandon his love of Lady Olivia, and Lady Olivia falls for Cesario, the name Viola adopted when she began her life as a man. The curse of love plagues all in this Shakespeare classic, and seeing the journey unfold on-screen is certainly a treat for audiences.

The first hour of this film moves incredibly slow. Having such an interesting plot, and many subplots within, I did not anticipate pacing being an issue for this film, but it certainly was. The production design was beautiful and the castles in which Lady Olivia and Count Orsino lived were beautifully done. A period piece such as this one depends upon its production design to be able to transform the audience into another place and time, and Trevor Nunn obviously knew that quite well. Nunn obviously took painstaking measures to create a realism to his film that cannot be ignored. Perhaps it was his dedication to realism that dragged on the first half of the film with endless shots of the sets being used. Whatever the issue, the sets were beautiful. The film was comprised of mostly British actors, which is always a treat for this film buff. By in large, British actors bring a sense of regalness to the roles they take, which is especially important when tackling Shakespeare. There was also wonderful music sprinkled throughout Twelfth Night. Oftentimes, especially throughout the first hour of the film, the music and acting were the only bright spots moving the film along. Another treat was being introduced to Helena Bonham Carter. I had never before seen a film starring the actress and only knew her as being romantically linked to director Tim Burton, so I was never sure what to expect from her. I was pleasantly surprised by her range on screen. She played the mourning, yet playful sister quite well. Bonham Carter also had no issue playing the love-struck yet hard to get Lady Olivia. Playing these opposites off each other so well gave me a new respect for the actress.

Twelfth Night goes to great depth to explore the limits of gender. Gender is, without question, the most obvious theme throughout the film, as it explores the sexual confusion created when Viola dresses up as a man. Meanwhile; while trying to gain access to Lady Olivia for herself, all the while working for Count Orsino in attempts to convince Lady Olivia to love him, Viola falls in love with Orsino herself. This love must remain a secret because no one knows Viola's true identity as a woman. Shakespeare doesn't do much to clear up this confusion, even by the play's close. Count Orsino seems to enjoy loving Viola while she is still exhibiting masculinity. It is left as a mystery whether or not Orsino loves Viola or her masculine persona. Another withstanding theme throughout the film is the burden of love. No one that loves someone is happy in this romantic comedy. Love seems to wage a war within each individual that experiences it on-screen, rather than the happy life-fulfilling emotion we are more comfortable describing it as. Whether the ending leaves you feeling like love conquers all, or love is for the birds, Shakespeare's romantic comedy is one that has endured.

It may be that since I have become older my hearing has deteriorated, or that my TV set needs replacing, or that the cable signal here is below par; but, for many dramatic works on TV, I now consistently find difficulty in following the dialogue. When this happens I usually attribute it to poor diction by the cast members. This would be very difficult to do in the case of Twelfth Night which has a uniformly excellent cast. Nevertheless my experience is that this problem is always exacerbated during the performance of any classic work which has been significantly transposed in either space of time, and I therefore do not generally enthuse about productions featuring Shakespearean plays as contemporary works. This film of Twelfth Night is actually set in the nineteenth century, and is also geographically transposed from Illyria to what is clearly Cornwall. Unfortunately I personally found this to be even more confusing than a completely contemporary performance. With Shakespeare in modern dress, one must accept the cast travelling by automobile or aeroplane and using modern electronic equipment, but here we have a period piece where the sixteenth century dialogue is spoken by actors in nineteenth century attire and interspersed by the playing of modern musical instruments and games, the use of period firearms, the riding of bicycles, and travel by stagecoach. For me such changes created great incongruities which destroyed the illusion of reality that all dramatic works have to try to create, and thus made the plot even more difficult to follow. So I am sorry but I cannot share the enthusiasm of many other viewers whose comments are recorded here.

That said, I must acknowledge that the performances are outstanding and the play flows in a way which many more traditional versions do not. Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's finest plays, with many complex characters who can constantly surprise the audience without in any way derailing the ongoing comedy, and this makes the play a joy to watch. Unfortunately only too often this comedy is reduced to near slapstick, which completely hides the depth Shakespeare wrote into most of the characters he created. Nunn's presentation is one of the best I have seen for gradually revealing these unexpected facets of character as his (greatly shortened) play develops. The longer I watched it the more at home I felt, and the nearer I came to at last being drawn into the performance. I can readily understand that those who do not share the reservations I have expressed above would be likely to rate this film very highly. In particular the performances of Ben Kingsley as Feste and of Helen Bonham Carter as Olivia are of award winning quality. The photography is also delightful, and the film shows none of the blips in continuity that so often take place when a heavily cut play by Shakespeare is filmed. Overall I have rated this film at 5 stars; but readers of these comments should recognise that I would have liked to give it a higher rating if only I had been able to forget occasionally that I was watching actors playing rather strange and hybrid parts.