Love hurts

>> >> Branagh's casting trips Love's Labour's Lost

by JOANNE LATIMER

Dance numbers in a Shakespearean comedy? Sure, why not. If you're going to put some steppin' in Shakespeare, however, you can't do a half-assed job of it. The dancing has to match the play's quicksilver banter, step for step, with skill and style. Kenneth Branagh had the gall to turn Love's Labour's Lost into a musical comedy for the screen, which isn't an altogether bad idea, but he had the poor judgment to give his audience lousy dance numbers.

Branagh, it seems, has shot himself in the foot. His cinematic franchise, otherwise known as the works of William Shakespeare, usually earns him hail-good-fellow pats on the back from educators afraid for the fate of literature. He has popularized Shakespeare, you often hear, and won over the kids.

Well done. But the kids won't go near Love's Labour's Lost. Neither, I wage, will grownups. The film is overly giddy, for one thing, and far too confident of its failed charms. Granted, no one wants a maudlin film about four young noblemen in love, but (a) Branagh isn't young anymore and (b) the film's airy-fairy clowning neuters the text's best speeches.

The action is set in 1939, just before WWII, and we are to believe that Alicia Silverstone is the Princess of France. She goes to Navarre on a diplomatic visit, where the young king (Alassandro Nivola) has just sworn off women to concentrate on his studies. Three of his buddies agree to take the same oath, but it all falls apart when the princess and her comely attendants arrive for some sport. Love letters are written, the wrong people read them. It all sorts itself out.

Branagh isn't what you'd call a twinkle toes and neither is his cast of non-singers. Silverstone is hard pressed here, speaking in verse and hoofing it to Irving Berlin and the Gershwins. Thank god for Adrain Lester, the only dancer in the group. The girls (Natasha McElhone, Emily Mortimer and Carmen Ejogo) do their best, waving long cigarette holders. They're good actresses, every one, but their roles are strictly ornamental.

The cast only had three weeks to rehearse and it shows. Branagh's off-rhythm casting nearly killed a Cole Porter song, "I Get a Kick Out of You," and for that he shall not be easily forgiven. :

Love's Labour's Lost opens Friday, June 30th