Much Ado About Nothing (2012) Dir: Joss Whedon

I've been a fan of Joss Whedon for a long time- it must be nigh on fifteen years now- and as a hard-core Buffy and Angel fan I've always liked to keep up with his latest projects; Firefly, the Avengers, and Agents of SHIELD, to name but a few. However, being an ex-literature student, Shakespeare has always been one of my great loves, so to hear that Joss was taking on one of Shakespeares' comedies, Much Ado About Nothing, was pretty exciting.

Filmed secretly whilst on a break from The Avengers, Much Ado About Nothing was done in Joss' typical incestual style, with many familiar faces from the Buffyverse and The Avengers. Amy Acker (or Fred, as she will always be to me) stars as the fiesty, and in my opinion, the feminist, Beatrice. Alexis Denisof (Wesley) is the comedic Benedick, and we also see Tom Lenk (Andrew) and Nathan Fillion (Caleb/ Malcolm) pop up as a bumbling police officer duo. These ex-Buffy actors are always a joy to watch, and filled my little shipper heart with joy to see some FredXWesley action (I'll stop with the Buffy references now).

The actors fairly new to me were Fran Kranz (it's been a long time since Dollhouse) as Claudio, and Jillian Morgese as Hero, the young lovers of the piece. Kranz was particularly believable as an alternatively lovestruck and broken hearted young man, and would make an excellent Romeo. His heartbroken speech in front of wedding attendees was very powerful, and let through a glimpse of his darker side.

Much Ado About Nothing was shot in black and white, and as a viewer it can take a little getting used to, seeing a contemporary, HD film in black and white. I thought it worked well and actually made it more stage-like; it created a focus on dialogue and movement, both of which are central to great character portrayal. The film was shot in Whedon's own home- in his words; "the film was literally a home movie"-, and the little girl's pink bedroom that the male characters stay in belonged to his daughters.

I had many favourite scenes, but my number one was the union (reunion in this adaption) of Benedick and Beatrice where they confess their love for each other. Their 'banter' throughout the play is very free, easy and funny, and this scene is the perfect mix of humour, romance and plot. Amy Acker's acting is brilliant, she really sells the mixed emotions of love, frustration, anger and helplessness. A lot of Beatrice's lines are very easy to relate to as a modern woman. We all know that sometimes Shakespeare can be difficult to understand, but Acker's delivery and body language is excellent, and makes Beatrice very relatable and easy to understand as a character. She also delivers one of my favourite lines, below:

"O that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving." - Beatrice, Act 4 Scene 1

My only criticism would be in aspects of the comedic factor. Alexis Denisof hams up the lovestruck Benedick to a large extent, and to anyone who's seen him as Wesley on Buffy/Angel, Alexis is funnier when he's subtle and not trying so hard. Wesley was funny because he was a realistic caricature, Benedick isn't as believeable and can seem insincere. In one of the weaker scenes, Benedick spies on Don Pedro and his men gossiping about Beatrice's love for Benedick. I think this scene could have been done a lot better, both with the style of filming and the acting. For example, it would have been nice to have seen a close up on Benedick's face of a shocked reaction to the news that Beatrice still loves him (a la Susan from Desperate Housewives). I understand that physical comedy was the focus, and that in Whedon's version Benedick and Beatrice already have a history so Benedick wouldn't necessarily have been shocked to learn this information, but I still would have liked to have seen more varied facial emotions and less physical comedy in this scene.

If you're a Joss Whedon, Amy Acker, or Shakespeare fan I would really recommend this film. It has the characteristic Whedon humour, Acker's acting is excellent, and, of course, the dialogue itself is great. It's not too long either, coming in at just under 110 minutes. Much Ado About Nothing is available to buy from Amazon here and you can watch the trailer in this post- however I would recommend the longer, alternative trailer which you can view on Amazon here.