Much Ado About Nothing

"Timeless" is a word people like to throw around when speaking of Shakespeare. Just today, a preview for Carlo Carlei's absurdly straightforward-looking adaptation of Romeo and Juliet tossed the word to me as I waited for Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing to start. But while teenagers still swoon over the misfortunes of Juliet and her Romeo, who are, like, SOULMATES 4EVAH, I was reminded while watching Whedon's film that maybe not all of Shakespeare's plays age so well.

Case in point: Much Ado About Nothing. I am predisposed to love Whedon's work: I am a cult follower of "Firefly," and while it took me awhile to jump on the Buffy bandwagon (on which I am now firmly lodged), I enjoy a good TNT "Angel" marathon. I've seen The Avengers probably a dozen times since last year. I always cry at a certain point in Serenity. Yet this movie didn't quite work for me, and I think it's really Shakespeare's fault.

Adapting Shakespeare into modern settings isn't something I'm inherently opposed to. Unlike some drama purists, I think that putting Shakespeare into anachronistic settings can actually intelligently comment on or enhance the plays' themes: witness Baz Luhrmann's angsty 90s-grunge Romeo + Juliet, which so perfectly captures the irrationality of teenagers in love, or Richard Loncraine's delicious alternative-1930s-England spin on Richard III. 

The problem with Much Ado About Nothing is this: like many Early Modern plays, the central crisis revolves around a woman's virginity and whether or not it's intact. (The title itself gives this away, though not so much to modern audiences; "nothing" was slang for a woman's naughty bits back in the day.) Say what you will about Claudio perceiving the real crime against him as adultery or betrayal or whatever, his lines at the disastrous wedding make explicitly, painfully clear that it's really Hero's lost "maidhood" he's upset over, as do Hero's repeated cries of "I'm TOTALLY A VIRGIN YOU GUYS WTF!" This emphasis on sex as irrevocably staining just doesn't update well to a modern setting, particularly when Whedon also makes the understandable but rather unusual adaptational choice of showing Benedick and Beatrice as former lovers. I rather wonder if Whedon's adaptation couldn't have gone farther and eliminated or altered the lines regarding all the is-Hero-a-virgin business; thinking you've seen your fiancee getting it on with a random stranger in her room the night before your wedding is upsetting enough on its own without worrying about her "maidhood," no?

The play's emphasis on Hero's virginity, Claudio's indignant (and, let's be honest, flat-out dickish) response to what he thinks he's seen, and the weird and creepy ending in which Leonato essentially tricks Claudio into his own happiness by playing Bride Swap ("Hey, I have this other niece who looks just like Hero, just marry her and we're cool"), have always left me unsettled, but they stood out in starker contrast here than they have in other adaptations I've seen. For example, Kenneth Branagh's adaptation, set vaguely in the 19th century, doesn't jar so much with this emphasis on chastity because a) we all kind of think that those 19th-century people were creeps about sex anyway, and b) Italian sunshine and beautiful blonde people make us happy and indulgent.

The other reason I think the virginity plot works so badly in Whedon's film is that its visual style often reminds me of the romantic comedies of the 1930s and 1940s, especially the ones in which Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy go head-to-head in a battle of wits. The film's black-and-white shots, composition homages to classic directors (there's mirror shots and shadows aplenty), and emphasis on screwball physical comedy all link it strongly to that early romcom tradition, which makes sense: the squabbling-but-totally-in-love Benedick and Beatrice are obvious precursors to the Hepburn/Tracy tradition. But those movies were often well ahead of their times in terms of sexual/gender politics, while the virginity emphasis here makes the whole thing seem weirdly regressive. These people appear to be living in California in 2013 -- Leonato & co. learn that Don John has been recaptured via smartphone -- but their sexual mores, at least regarding poor Hero, could just as easily be 1613, and it's terribly disconcerting.

The film is not without its pleasures, however. A few players are fairly weak (poor Hero!), but most of the cast are competent, and some are excellent. Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson from The Avengers) is funny and a little fumbling as Leonato, and Sean Maher (Firefly!!) is perfect as the sullen and scheming Don John. Nathan Fillion's Dogberry is delightfully played as a comically bumbling CSI-type: his sunglasses go on and off as he makes pronouncements that seem very important to him, even though nobody else can make sense of them.

Okay, this one's pretty clear.

The film rests fairly squarely on its two leads, however, and they don't disappoint. I do wonder if the film was done chronologically, because Amy Acker's Beatrice begins as a little bit forced and stilted, but by twenty minutes or so into the film she's got both the comedy and the pent-up anger of Beatrice down. Alexis Denisof is a solid Benedick, a modern womanizer who nevertheless can't resist the woman he really loves, and both actors have some great physical comedy bits, particularly in the scenes where they overhear others setting them up to believe each other infatuated. The actors have a warm, believable chemistry between them, although I admit I don't think anyone will ever quite match up to the Emma Thompson/Kenneth Branagh powerhouse of the 1993 film.

Overall, Whedon's Much Ado wasn't quite what I had hoped it would be, but I can understand why it couldn't be. Unlike "timeless" themes like Romeo and Juliet's young love or Hamlet's existential angst, an emphasis on a woman's virginity as dealbreaker just doesn't translate well to 21st-century America. Nevertheless, it is refreshing to see a clever, carefully crafted movie in theatres that doesn't involve $400 million dollars' worth of CGI or marquee megastars, and nerds like myself will enjoy the parade of Whedon's perennial stable of actors. If the 1993 Branagh film is a potent glass of sweet Italian wine, Whedon's is a jazzy modern cocktail -- well-made but with an edge of bitter.

And let's not forget to specify, when time and place shall assert, that Dogberry is an ass. It's important to him.