Mariam-As You Like It ⭐⭐⭐

I watched this play almost a month ago and it is startling how much I remember of it and how consistently my opinion of it has stayed the same. It was perfectly pleasant and entertaining to watch. It was very forgettable. So why did it stay in my memory?

It was beautiful for one. I love a good pastoral setting and there were beautiful gardens, Japanese bridges, and beautiful costumes. The lighting was good too although it was into the 2000s now so it was starting to lose that nostalgic 90s feeling.

I do have one gripe which is there was absolutely no reason for this movie to have been in Japan. Apparently Kenneth Branagh was in Japan (?) or a Japanese garden (?) and thought, "now couldn't this be the Forest of Arden?" And so he did it. At first, I thought he wasn't going to have any of the Japanese characters speak at all which would have been very weird but thankfully he didn't do that. I think he got away with it not being offensive, but a Japanese person needs to fact check that.

I was not a fan of this couple.

He was horrible to her and she did not deserve that. It was pitiful how happy she was for him to make a wife of her and how much she was willing to give him and he was just trying to trick her. I didn't find it funny at all. 

I thought it was insane the game Rosalind played with Orlando, pretending to be a man and "allowing" him to practice his courtship of Rosalind on her. But I also got it. Who doesn't want to hear the honest, tortured thoughts of your lover? But mostly I'm with Celia here:

I liked Celia. She was sweet and good and loyal. She fell in love a little too fast but they all did and at least it was mutual. 

I do wonder, if the right cast could add depth to this play. Like Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh in Much Ado About Nothing. That could be a fluff play but they brought some depth to it that wasn't written explicitly into the script. 

This was very much a fluff production, but IF someone could do this with depth, I would love to see it. Perhaps there is no depth here though. Missy has mentioned some of his plays are not so strong and I can see that this might be one of them.

Oh, one interesting As You Like It mention I came across soon after watching it! I was reading The Orient Express by Agatha Christie for my Ramadan book club (theme is Orient Express this year) and one of the characters is an actress named Linda Arden. She took that on as her stage name for the Forest of Arden from As You Like It. I had not expected to ever come across a reference of this play much less so soon!

We are on to The Merchant of Venice next which I hear is a good production but cringey and horrid and anti-Semitic. And rated R which I certainly hope is not for violence or a "pound of flesh".