Very well executed

Don't Believe the Hype

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This is a simple comedy by Shakespeare. Nothing to deface the world with laughter or to haunt your sleepless nights. But we find in this light comedy some themes that are dear to our playwright. Love, and love, and love. The love of a girl for a boy, of a young woman for a young man, a love that cannot exist because of the social difference between the two. The ingenuity and creativity of the young woman who saves the life of the king with the medical knowledge she received from her father, and the promise of the King to give her any man she wants. She chooses the young man who is well obliged to oblige and get married, which does not mean consume the union. He goes to the war and the young woman is going to follow and with some other young women she will trick him into impregnating her and an exchange of rings will make the situation very difficult for him. So the union has been consumed sort of on the side and the young man graciously accepts his defeat and declares his love. That is slightly artificial but Shakespeare in his comedies at times is slightly superficial. Another theme that is dealt with nicely is the "captain" that takes care of the young noble man we are dealing with when serving in the military. He is a liar, he is a coward, he is also running after skirts as much as he can. Shakespeare disgraces him with some kind of conjuration and he ends up nearly a beggar, stinking to hell and blazes and ready to do anything to get a penny. That's a very simple version of what Falstaff is going to be later but he is funny in some ways though pathetic. The BBC is adding to that play that is mostly taking place in France, and a little in Florence, a setting and costumes that are, in the house of the young man, very close to the Flemish school of painting, Rembrandt and the Van Eyck brothers. That gives to the play a post-Renaissance touch that is slightly surprising.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

In a sense, there has been too much effort and taste lavished on a problem play that is a long way short of Shakespeare's best. The Vermeer interiors and Rembrandt references look a treat, but (as well as being anachronistic by half a century) add weight where there is little in the text. A number of the performances do the same, including Angela Down's magnificent Helena, and Paul Brooke's Lavache, the least clownish, and most accountant-like, clown one could possibly hope to meet.The problem is that if the play is read as a piece with serious psychological points to make and where motivation may be complex but remains explicable, then it is a hard play to watch. Bertram is a distinctly unappealing husband (Ian Charleson's performance does not find hidden depths) for a strong character such as Helena. The tormenting of Parolles by Bertram and his friends can be dismissed as Elizabethan knockabout, unless the treatment is highly realistic, in which case - as in this production - it looks like torture. The attempted seduction of Diana can be farcical, with the clever comedic logic of the rings and the pregnancy, but here seems simply unpleasant.Donald Sinden's King is the sort of eye-rolling ham performance that will make sense of this play, but amidst the restraint he falls rather flat.The stand-out performance is Celia Johnson's Countess, a lovely role brilliantly played. She is not the butt of any jokes, and so can be played tenderly. As with Sinden, the older style of acting suits the material. Sometimes, for example during the Florentine scenes, one aches for Johnson to be on screen.It's not awful, just very much the wrong style, like filming St Trinians in the style of Cathy Come Home.

Though not nearly as much fun as some of Shakespeare's better comedies, this is nevertheless good fun to watch. Although it irritates me to see Shakespeare performed in stodgy period dress, it's still a well-acted piece.I was especially fond of Peter Jeffrey as the foppish Parolles. I like Shakespeare when he portrays upper-class idiots as he has a tendency in too many of his plays ("Measure for Measure", "A Midsummer Night's Dream")to portray the working classes as fools or rustics whose natural place is subservient to the lords and ladies who are so often his principal characters. This is patronising, but is some way made up for here. Jeffrey is excellent fun and his verbal duels with Micheal Horden's Lafeu are the best scenes in the play.Angela Down is very good is the smart Helena, and Ian Charleson has the right mix of charm and sullenness as Bertram, her unwilling choice of husband. Pippa Guard is very fetching as the maid Diana, and Donald Sinden gives a good performance as the King of France.By no means a classic of Shakespeare's, it's still a good watch.

The production design of this video is based on paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, de la Tour and others. It is uniformly striking and lovely, and will live in the memory.The acting performances are good, but uneasy, perhaps reflecting the problematic nature of the play. Ian Charleson's Bertram is cold, Angela Down's Helen is weepy, and so they stay for yards and yards of iambic pentameter. Only Donald Sinden as the King errs on the side of too much emotional variety, but it's hard to remember a Sinden performance in which he wasn't an explosive law unto himself. Michael Hordern and Peter Jeffrey battle deftly as Lafeu and Parolles, while Paul Brooke's Lavache is more menacing than witty. Pippa Guard's Diana is unfailingly dignified, and a small cameo by the aged Valentine Dyall proves unexpectedly moving. And as the Countess, Celia Johnson's presence is every bit as sympathetic here as it was in "Brief Encounter" 35 years earlier.Any dissatisfactions mentioned in this review are just quibbles, however, as the play is rare and worthwhile, the production gratifies the eye, and no one writes a closing reconciliation scene like Shakespeare. Indeed, All's Well That Ends Well.