A Bemusing Romantic Reverie

4 / 5

Set in the exquisite and delightfully enticing backdrop of a zestful fairy colony, this version of Shakespeare’s highly acclaimed ‘comic revel’ is speckled with unmatched romp and foolery deserving to be called “a triumphant revival” of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
If you thought that gone were the days of those stupendous ‘musicals’ then think again for Michael Hoffman’s direction charms you with it’s scenic spectacles and troops of balletic fairies, often allowed to sway amidst a fancy riot of upholstery, a fine flurry of dulcet sounds and a truly indispensable blitzkrieg of hue.
Certainly, if you wanted gritty realism, you’d find scarce of it in the film. Instead, you find fairies, autocrats, rural buffoons and a bizarre mixture of captivating surrealism, moulded in which is the grace of magic and pungent human emotion.
The popular tale that traces its creation back to the 16th century could have never received such a magnificent tribute as this one. Hoffman uses his myriad experience to completely translate the happenings of fairy world and incorporate them into this immensely inviting comedy. Its lyricism, magical transmogrifications and cynicism are surely some of the most cunning ever. The supernatural and the mundane, the illusory and the substantial, all are shimmeringly blended.
Lysander (Dominic West) and Hermia (Anna Friel) are two fiery lovers, curbed by the forever patronizing Egeus (Owen Trusome) forcing them to drive their contorted lives into further complexities. Both run deep into the thicket of a forbidden jungle and find themselves part and parcel of a petty argument stemming from the misunderstandings of a bashful Titania (Michelle Pfeiffer) queen of immortals and her king Oberon (Rupert Everett).
Thus begins a tale of loud confusion as the suave and stoic Robin Goodfellow (Stanley Tucci) pleases master Oberon by trickling a drop of magic potion in the eyes of Titania. On another extreme, Puck jeers ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’; but the joke may be on him and his master when the voluptuously amorous Titania embraces Bottom(Kevin Kline) the weaver, his head transformed into that of an ass.
Love is treated as tragic, poignant, absurd and an outrageous brew of mayhem. Demetrius (Christian Bale) is another lover of Hermia, touched in the head- and his bum chum, the vivacious Helena (Calista Flockhart). Thus sets in a vivid tale placed on the threshold of magic bound by the terribly eerie potion song:
What thou see’st when thou dost wake, Do it for thy true- love sake
Be it ounce or cat or bear, Pard or boar with bristled hair
In thy eye that shall appear When thou wak’st it is thy dear!

With spectacular performances by Pfeiffer and Everett and told with a brave and attractive combination of fantasy, common sense and of airy feyness Michael Hoffman’s remake is definitely one of the most holistically meaningful films ever made. It is fiercely fantastical yet realistically evocative. “I wonder what she sees in him?” -mumbles a disgusted Oberon on seeing Titania fly to the ass turned Bottom- is a remark sometimes heard at a wedding or “He’s making an ass of himself” can be heard at receptions too!
Hence, a true visual treat A Midsummer Night’s Dream is surely one of those “delicacies” you’d want to enjoy while at the table with family or at the theatre with friends! A must see for one all! Such stories that illustrate the thin borderline between the human and the bestial are surely rare, making you feel you have woken after a long summery trance (lasting merely two hours!).