Much Ado About Nothing Review

It can be easy to fall in love with the work of Joss Whedon, or at least admire his work ethic.  While it seems so many marketable names can succumb to making paycheck movies once they’ve gotten big, Whedon’s still interested in making stories about characters.  For his follow up to The Avengers, the 200 million dollar blockbuster that broke a billion dollars worldwide, he staged a secret low budget, black and white adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, shot at his home in California and starring mostly people he’s worked with in the past.  The result is a little wobbly, but a welcome and charming side project.

The film sticks to the original play and language, while updating the setting into contemporary times (though an iPod is used, modern technology is kept to a minimum).  Once it started, I immediately wished I’d read the play beforehand, but that’s more on me.  I’ll surely check it out on home video with the subtitles on.  Regardless of my difficulties fully getting in to it (mostly my fault), you can follow along to any good Shakespearean adaptation if you can understand half of what they’re saying and by following the actor’s cues  as you can here.

Shakespearean text is often the toughest material to deliver without sounding like it’s being read for English class, but this cast largely pulls it off.  Alexis Denisof is fun as the arrogant Benedick and Nathan Fillion continues his streak of being awesome as Dogberry, but it is Amy Acker who is the true standout of this cast.  Acker shines as Beatrice, a head strong, independently minded woman that fits well within the Whedon canon.  Of the actors she handles Shakespeare’s words the best and brings a real emotional depth to them.  Not to mention her chemistry with Denisof is undeniably strong.

Though the film has all the staples of a Shakespearean comedy; the large ensemble of characters, said characters plotting against each other, mistaken identities and characters falling in and out of love, it owes a lot to the screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s.  Besides the black and white photography, there is some great physical comedy here, like when Denisof poses/exercises Ron Burgundy style for Acker, a certain pratfall involving a stairway and two scenes of characters eavesdropping, fully utilizing Whedon’s home as a locale.

There is this great sense of “What the hell, let’s put on a show”, that makes this film endearing.  They lack the huge budget and certain production values, but you can tell the actors were having fun.  Of course, this film could easily fall into the vanity project filmmakers are prone to making once they become successful, but this is pretty far from flying his friends to an exotic location with a half-baked script in an attempt to pass off his vacation as a movie.  Like Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog, Whedon’s low budget, do-it-yourself fare is a refreshing alternative to certain bloated, excessive films some of his peers are making.

Grade: B