As You Like It: A Film by Kenneth Branagh

I'll admit right off the bat that I am a Kenneth Branagh fan. I've liked almost everything that he's directed, even the four-hour Hamlet, which made more sense to me than many other productions of the tragedy. My favorite has to be Much Ado About Nothing, which has Emma Thompson, whom I like even better than Branagh. Too bad they don't like each other anymore, for they made a great team.

I did not know about Branagh's As You Like It until Bonnie brought it home. It appears that it was on cable rather than in the cinema in the U.S. I must have had my head in the sand because a fair number of libraries have it. It is comforting knowing that collectively librarians keep up when we sometimes slip up as individuals.

About half way through the movie I imagined seeing it over and over again for the scenes in the woods are so beautiful and the romance is so sweet. Also, the film has such a great cast, including Brian Blessed who plays both the good duke and the evil duke, and Kevin Kline, who I like even more than I like Branagh and Thompson.

The play requires the viewer to suspend critical thinking to accept the beautiful Rosalind disguised as a boy and not to question why some people never meet in the woods when everyone else does. Some of the plot is quickly dismissed with a line or two. Still, it is Shakespeare and full of great lines. It belongs in more library collections.